Tag Archives: Batman vs. Superman

#FlyToMetropolis

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This is part of a series of essays written for Chris Gavaler’s comics class.
 
Unless you live under a rock you know about “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” And you probably remember the advertisements and promotional tie-ins. For the CBS Superbowl pregame one of the leading sponsors for the movie, Turkish Airlines, released two commercials, “Fly to Gotham City with Turkish airlines” and “Fly to Metropolis with Turkish Airlines.”
 

 
Both commercials are awesome but I personally like the “Fly to Metropolis” one more. Here are ten thoughts that I had while watching the commercial, which for the record I have watched about a thousand times now.

  1. ~Inspirational Music~

The commercial opens up with some inspirational music playing in the background while a narrator with a calm but strong voice tells you about the ~newest~ destination for the “airline that flies to more countries than any other.”
 
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  1. Maybe I’ll go to Metropolis for my next vacation

As I watched the Turkish Airlines jet fly over Metropolis and saw all the cool details of the city I seriously started wondering if I could go on a vacation there. One of the reasons why this is my favorite ad of all time is that it really looks like a real tourism video and it seriously makes me want to go to Metropolis for my next vacation. I usually hate all of those tacky tourism videos but this commercial left viewers with a sense of magic. (It also probably helps that it’s an imaginary city… but still.)
 
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  1. Damn that’s a lot like New York…

It takes a few seconds for it to sink in but the skyline that the jet flies next to is nearly identical to the NYC skyline. One of the bridges shown looks like a newer version of the Brooklyn Bridge and a building that appears in several different shots looks like a slightly different, LexCorp version of the Freedom Tower. There are also yellow taxis and at one point we see people sitting at a restaurant outside of the “Metropolis Museum of Modern Art,” which is clearly supposed to be the actual MoMA in New York City.
 
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  1. It’s like way cleaner though…

At this point I started to second guess myself and tried to convince myself that there was no way it’s actually New York because it was way too clean. There was almost no trash on the streets. No overflowing trash cans, no Starbucks cups littering the ground, and no one dropping their trash on the ground because they’re too lazy to go to the trashcan. It looked like they power washed the streets and sidewalks of New York.
 
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  1. There’s no pollution either and it’s so sunny! There’s no way this is New York…

It looks like a way happier version of New York. The sun is shining and the air looks so clear and clean. There is one shot in particular that shows a variety of people (bankers, construction workers, moms, kids, etc.) all walking in one spot but they aren’t pushing each other or yelling or flipping each other off. They’re just going about their business. The commercial also has several shots of the sun gleaming off buildings that definitely contributes to the perception of Metropolis as a more perfect version of New York.
 
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  1. Woo! Superman and Clark Kent!

~Major name drop~ This is when it becomes obvious to even the most disconnected people that the commercial is clearly about Superman. The narrator mentions “our heritage” and we are shown a shot of The Daily Planet building and then they mention “our heroes” and we see a statue that looks a lot like the statues of Atlas holding up the world but instead it’s Superman and he is bowing down to the city and holding it up.
 
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  1. LexCorp and Lex Luther

The main action of the commercial is Lex Luther holding a press conference on top of the unfinished LexCorp building and touting LexCorps “substantial contributions” to the city. It was at this point that I was calling him an obnoxious show off and saying that he has “no chill.” I also started to wonder if he was supposed to represent Michael Bloomberg. The resemblances are uncanny. Mainly that they run (or used to run) these major cities and that their companies donated large sums of money to projects aimed at revitalizing a city. After 9/11 Bloomberg’s company contributed $15 million to the effort to rebuild Lower Manhattan. This definitely brings in some dystopian elements and plays on current fears that corporations will take over or control entire cities/societies.
 
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  1. ~More Inspiration~

~Visit the city of tomorrow, today~ Super, super corny but definitely hits a note with some people that would make them go and buy a plane ticket right after the commercial was over. This advertisement is definitely imitating a tourism commercial. They hit all the stereotypical elements of a tourism ad.
 
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  1. Damn Lex Luther back at it again with the white vans (or white suit)

Just kidding about the white vans. But Lex Luther does make another appearance except this time he is sitting first class in a Turkish Airlines jet holding a blue stress ball that makes it look like he has the world in his hand. He very creepily says, “We can’t wait to welcome you.” It seems so sweet but it’s just fake nice. This is when the dystopian vibes come in. Lex Luther looks like an evil genius that is plotting to brainwash us when we visit, or something crazy like that.
 
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  1. Was this really an Ad for Metropolis? Or was it about New York?

There are so many similarities between the two cities. The commercial also makes it look like they are selling tickets for flights to a perfect New York. Each time I watch the video I find more things that connect Metropolis to New York and it freaks me out a little. It also makes me question the motives of the movie: are they trying to comment on our society? Is this an undercover attack on Bloomberg?

  1. I know I said it would be only ten thoughts but I can’t resist throwing in another and I have to point out how different this is from other airline ads.

Since 9/11 advertisements for airlines have changed a lot. Immediately after the attacks they focused on rebuilding trust with American consumers. They wanted to stop people from associating the attacks with the airlines too much and needed to make sure that 9/11 didn’t completely destroy the industry. American Airlines had to do a lot of damage control and released an entire ad campaign focusing on patriotism and trust after the attacks. But as 9/11 becomes further and further away, ads have started focusing more on customer service and perks instead of rebuilding trust and showing how much they love America. In other Turkish Airlines ads we can see that return to focusing on the perks associated with their company. They also usually incorporate humor into their ads and commonly feature celebrities. Fly to Metropolis though has a very different tone and is much more inline with the ads that we were seeing immediately following the attacks. The commercial hits a more serious yet optimistic note while also inspiring viewers. That tone is brought out through the ad’s treatment of Superman as an actual hero and not just a comic book character. It is also emphasized through the portrayal of Metropolis, artfully intertwining the story world with our world by making Metropolis so eerily similar to New York. This is one of the best commercials that I have seen. It has a very different tone and overall aesthetic compared to other commercials involving Superman and other contemporary airline commercials.

Wonder Woman in Batman vs. Superman

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There’s a new (new!) Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer. Watch it now!
 

 
Online reaction seems pretty skeptical, centering on Jesse Eisenberg’s jittery camp. People don’t want jittery camp from their supervillains anymore, I guess. No love for Frank Gorshin.

Anyway, as you’ll see if you can make it to the end, Gal Gadot shows up as Wonder Woman right at the close, in a moment also played for cutesy laughs. Doomsday (I guess that’s Doomsday) shoots some sort of special effect thing at Batman, and our dour hero is about to be incinerated, when Wonder Woman leaps in with her shield. “Is she with you?” Superman asks, with Henry Cavill demonstrating that he’s got nice comic timing. “I thought she was with you,” Batman replies in grim dark bat voice.

Part of the joke is about the wrong-footed testosterone. Wonder Woman, as a woman, should belong to either Superman or Batman. But (feminism!) she doesn’t. The conflicted bromance m/m romantic comedy (complete with meet cute at the trailer’s beginning) is interrupted; the gritty ballet of manly men thumping each other gives way to the sit-com shuffle of manly men belching in confusion as the woman of the house swoops in to be competent.

William Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator, would probably find a bit to like here; Wonder Woman as invader of man’s world (metaphorically and literally) resonates with his original themes to some degree, and of course it’s nice to have her saving the bat dude rather than the other way around. The perspective, though, is inevitably wrong way round. Wonder Woman, the original comic, started out after all with Steve Trevor invading Paradise Island, and even in Man’s World, Diana was surrounded by sorority girls and fellow Amazons, so that Steve was always the lone dude in a female community.

The whole point of the original Wonder Woman was that Wonder Woman was the standard; women were the normal thing, and men were the sometimes odd, sometimes sexy, but always secondary other. Wonder Woman in Dawn of Justice is heroic, but she’s heroic through the eyes, and from the perspective, of the two guys whose relationship is the title of the film. Which isn’t surprising, really, but does mean that, Supergirl, Jessica Jones, Buffy, or any superhero show where the woman is in the title, is going to be truer in many ways to Marston’s vision than the character called Wonder Woman in a film titled Batman vs. Superman.

Thor vs. the Dark World of DC

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Thor 2

According to the new Thor movie, every few millennia the universes line up for an anything-goes cosmic cross-over called the Convergence. Inhabitants of unrelated realms get sucked through portals and tossed together to defy the laws of physics. It happened for the first time in 2012. They called it The Avengers.  Superheroes from all the Marvelverses were plucked from their disparate origin worlds to converge in a single, box office-defying blockbuster.

Physicists predict the next Convergence will occur in 2015—not once, but twice! Not only will The Avengers 2 draw the sequel-spinning franchises of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America together again, but Warner Brothers’ Batman vs. Superman has Gotham and Metropolis on a collision course—with Paradise Island and Starling City and other DC planets to be swept into the same Justice League gravity pit.

But which Convergence will come to define all of superhero reality?

In Thor: the Dark World, an evil dark elf wants to use the Convergence to remake reality in his own dark image. He’s played by former Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston, but his real name is Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight trilogy and the gray tones it casts over Man of Steel now define the DC brand. It’s a humorless void happier with the droning rumble of Christian Bale’s Bat-rasp than the giggles of a live audience.

Christopher Nolan

The Dark Knight Elf wants to crush the world into a Black Hole. But Thor, with his lightning bolts and deadpan timing, is all about levity. He’s super-hunk Chris (not Christopher) Hemsworth in the credits, but his real name is Joss Whedon. The Asgardian—like his buddies Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and even the ever earnest Steve Rodgers—is a Comedian. He throws that mighty hammer at all kinds of monstrous bad-asses, but he it’s our funny bone he keeps hitting. I didn’t see Joshing Joss’ name in the credits, but I hear Mr. Whedon was responsible for major rewrites and reshoots—all part of his uber-duties as the overseeing Odin of the Marvelverses. He’s Captain Convergence, and he wants the world to end in a laugh not a rasp.

Joss Whedon

Of course the Whedonverse isn’t a flawless reality. There’s a moment in Thor 2 when a funeral barge sails over an Asgardian waterfall and hangs there a moment before dropping—a little like Wile E. Coyote after sprinting past the edge of a canyon. It would be pointless to criticize a Road Runner cartoon for its failure to follow basic laws of physics. And the same is true of Thor: the Dark World and the laws of plotting. The word “convenient” comes to mind, as does “inexplicable” and “far-fetched.” Director Alan Taylor is hoping we’ll be too busy enjoying ourselves to ask annoying questions like “How is it that a random convergence portal just happened to drop Thor’s girlfriend of all people into the exact spot where the Dark Elf’s reality-destroying superweapon has been hidden for millennia?” Comic worlds tend to cut corners. Do we really need to hear a ponderous explanation? Nolanland has plenty of those, and its’ still pockmarked with its own plot portals.

The Whedonverse—despite Whedon having literally majored in Women’s Studies—also can’t find much for Natalie Portman to do but look lovelorn and occasionally panic-stricken. This might be the result of the gender-challenged fabric of superhero reality, since DC can’t even turn a Wonder Woman screenplay penned by Joss Whedon into an actual movie. Apparently Hollywood executives think fanboys won’t buy tickets to see scantily-clad women in fight scenes. And yet the shirtless beefcake shot (Hemsworth provides a couple screamers) has become a staple of the genre (the clothing-challenged Stephen Amell flexes weekly on the CW’s Arrow).

This may or may not be why my wife surprised us both by saying she wanted to see the new Thor movie. I was so underwhelmed by the first that I was going to pass, but I’m glad she suggested it. I like dumb fun. I also like smart fun, but that combination has yet to Converge on a superhero universe. I’m hoping it won’t take a millennia.