A MANLY MOVIE REVIEW OF

BATMAN VERSUS SUPERMAN:

DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)

 

by Christopher T. Haun for http://cthaun.tech

March 2016

 

*Spoiler Alert*

This review contains spoilers.

 

Good and Evil

 

Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice (or BVS for short) grabbed my attention from the start of the movie and didn’t let it go until after it was long over. While some have complained about the movie having too many plotlines woven together, my ADHD enjoyed bouncing round. Part of the reason I found it engaging and entertaining was that BVS philosophizes quite a bit about the struggles between good, evil, God, gods, and men. As an amateur philosopher and theologian, this accounts for much of what made it so gripping and provocative for me. By provocative I mean something very similar to the provocation I expect the apostle Paul experienced as he wandered around all the idols in the city of Athens per Acts 17:16.

I was a little reluctant to see the movie at first because I’m tired of darkness. I’m tired of being shown the world through dark lenses. And this looked like yet another dark movie. I’m tired of morally ambiguous heroes they offer us. Their best heroes now tend to be what—65% good and 35% bad? And villains may be 55% bad and 45% good? Whatever the ratios may actually be, it’s difficult for a father to point to any modern hero and say to his children, “Be more like that person!” Today it is hard to know who to root for because everyone in television and movies seems to be partially good and partially bad. I’m tired of smelling the sewage that spurts in greater and greater volume from the Hollywood pipe. I’m tired of Hollywood’s mission to mix good and evil and serve it with baked with visual cocaine to addicts worldwide. I’m also tired of seeing my childhood heroes turned dark by the movie makers who think movie watchers really prefer moral ambiguity. I’m tired of all the violence and desensitization to violence. Things were so different when I was a boy. In the late 1970s and 80s, television, movies, and other stories tended to have clear-cut distinctions between “the good guys” and “the bad guys.” Watching westerns like The Lone Ranger and The Rifleman taught me some sense of honor, some sense of good and evil, and made me think that a boy has to take sides. You either choose the good side or the bad side. There was no middle-ground. Back in the early 80s a boy could watch a police show like CHiPs, see police carrying firearms on their belts, and almost never see them draw (much less discharge) a weapon. I suppose Miami Vice changed that. Now today you can’t watch a show about police without your soul being bruised by depictions of violence and police corruption. By contrast, the Batman characters I remember from television and comic books in the 70s and 80s were not nasty. They used non-lethal violence (batarangs rather than submachine guns, for example) to subdue criminals and leave them tied up for the police to deliver to the jails and courts. Now that changed in 1986 with the graphic novel series The Dark Knight Returns
(which is funneled heavily into BVS). I was thirteen years old when I made the mistake of buying those graphic novels. They disturbed me. And they were one of the many things that contributed to more and more darkness filling my soul. The Batman movies of the

21^st century have become rather dark. I can’t judge how dark because I’m already overly desensitized. And from the trailers it seemed like the Batman in Superman versus Batman (2016) was going to be also be very dark. And like I said, I’m tired of darkness. It wearies me.

The obvious retort is that the shows of my youth were unrealistic. They didn’t correspond with the real world. The real world has a lot of moral evil in it—deception, murders, genocide, wars, cruelty, sadism, etc. You grow up thinking that you belong to a morally upright country and then find out that it is not so upright after all. And people are not polarized into obvious camps of good guys who wear white hats and bad guys who wear black hats. We’re all a mixture of good and bad. Maybe the hero is the flawed person who somehow manages to do the right thing. Are there any heroes in the real world? Maybe that’s why we have to invent them. Every person is going to disappoint us. Maybe television and movies are just more honest and less idealized these days. Maybe they’re just a mirror of our culture where corruption in every level is the norm. Sigh. Yes, we are all imperfect moral beings. And I like it when our heroes struggle with difficult moral problems. But I do miss the old days when our heroes set good examples for us. And I can’t help but suspect that the demise of the true hero in film and literature in the 21^st century contributes to us being more inclined to be more “morally ambiguous” than we would otherwise be.

There is a lot of darkness in this movie. I was left wondering for the first 70% of the movie whether there would be anything redeeming and praiseworthy in it. It was hard to root for either Batman or Superman. BVS offers us a very dark Batman. Fairly early in the BVS, butler Alfred expresses his disgust towards Bruce (Batman) when he realizes that Bruce has been branding people—yes, burning the bat logo into their flesh—and becoming a murderer. He seems to have moved away from a form of almost-noble “vigilante justice” that both the downtrodden and the beleaguered Gotham police force might both appreciate and he seems to have ventured into a new level of sadistic vigilantism. In a somewhat fatherly and disturbed tone, Alfred warns Bruce about how powerlessness and rage “turns good men cruel.” Batman has wandered from hero to monster. Some of the people he saved said, “The Devil saved us!” Later in the movie Bruce tells Alfred, “No one can stay good in this world!”

In this movie we’re forced to question whether Superman also lost his halo. Was he responsible for the destruction of Gotham City? Batman thinks so. Eighteen months later does Superman also become guilty of overacting in an excessively violent way in “Nairomi?” And then was he also complicit in the terrorist act of blowing up the U.S. Capitol building? Is he guilty of crimes against humanity? Is Superman going to prove to be a catalyst for an authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist state in the future where police wear Nazi SS styled helmets, paramilitary SWAT styled togs, and patches with the “S” on them? Is Superman going to be a perpetual source of trouble with alien civilizations? Does Superman act unilaterally with no regard for the will of other beings? One of his accusers says of him, “Superman answers to no one. Not even [to] God.”

But we in the movie audience are allowed to see glimpses that prove Superman/Clark-Kent/Kal-El is really not a bad guy. While the rest of his world doubts him and seems to turn against him, Superman, seeing a news report of a stranger in need of rescue, flies to rescue her. He has compassion for the members of the human race even though he’s not a human. He rescues strangers in need because that’s who he really is. He’s still a worthy hero. And we can still root for him. But Alexander “Lex” Luthor is manipulating public opinion about him. Superman does become tempted to give up on mankind. He has spent his adult life helping mankind and it’s a thankless job. Similarly, in BVS Wonder Woman makes it clear that after fighting in Europe in WWI, she has given up on fighting on behalf of the mortal humans and now prefers to just collect ancient art.

Lex of course remains the villian’s villan. At one point he explains, “‘Psychotic’ is just a three-syllable word for anything too big for little minds.” And as the movie progresses it is clear that he is eager to murder all the gods, create monsters, and bring the Devil to earth.

Someone in the movie insists that “the American conscience died with Robert, Martin, and John.” While I’m not sure exactly what he meant by death of conscience here, we can at least be sure that he was referring to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and John Kennedy in the 1960s. I imagine he perhaps means that some power-hungry segment of the American population seared their conscience to a very high degree by arranging these assassinations and perhaps the American public lost their optimism, their courage, and their desire to determine the truth and do something about it. If it is true that all evil needs in this world to dominate affairs is for good men to do nothing against it, perhaps it could be argued that Americans did nothing more than give into despair and thus let the evil triumph. But this is nothing but speculation on my part.

A U. S. Senator (played by Holly Hunter) is concerned about Superman’s power being unchecked.

She asks the nation, “How do we determine what is good? In a democracy, it is a conversation!” So she urges Superman to face his accusers and give a defense of his actions. She clearly hopes that he will begin to “act on our will” rather than act on his own will. This is interesting because it suggests that morality is a matter of social convention. Does a single person have the right to his or her individual sense of right and wrong? Or must the individual bow to the collective opinion of a larger group? This could provide a fun ethical exercise. But what I really want to point out is that the movie fails to raise the question of whether there is an even higher basis for morality than the preferences in consensus of a large group. It seems stuck with what Francis Schaeffer used to call “sociological law”—law based on the opinion of a group of humans rather than on some transcendent and absolute standard that encompasses all humans.

 

The movie plays with the question of socio-moral relativism in a few other ways. When Lois Lane, the reporter, asks the Tuareg warlord in Africa if he is a terrorist or not, he turns the question around on her. Is the Department of Defense in her country responsible for the terror dropped by the drones that are constantly flying over their heads? If you’re an American, the guys with Kalashnikovs and RPGs in Africa may seem like terrorists. But if you’re in Africa, perhaps the guys flying the hellfire missiles seem like the terrorists. Does this mean that morality is relative? That it is relative to which people group you’re a part of? While I appreciate the need to view moral dilemmas from various perspectives, I would argue that morality is relative. The imposition of the will of one group upon any other group by violence is wrong regardless of details. There is a nonrelative moral standard of “do unto others as you would have them do to you” which is true and static regardless of which group you’re in and regardless of what some other group wants to try to do to you. Terrorism is evil regardless of whether it is done with rifles, grenades, or missiles. But this movie arguably tries to bump our view of morality in the direction of moral relativism.

The movie plays a third time on the problem of sociological law. Lex drags the corpse of alien Zod into the half-functional spacecraft and asks the artilect in the ship to hybridize Zod’s DNA with Lex’s DNA and bring it to life. At first the artilect sternly insists that some very important decree was made in the past by the ruling council of the planet Krypton which forbids this type of genetic shenanigans. The decree sounded something like: “Thou shall not give life to deformity.” Lex reasons with the artilect. “Well, where is the council that made that decree?” The artilect admits, “They no longer exist.” The artificial intelligence of the artilect recognizes the validity of Lex’s logic.

1. The decree/law was based upon the preferences of a specific society.
   
2. That society and their preferences no longer exists.
   
3. Therefore that law no longer exists.
   
4. I do exist (and I’ve got the authority from General Zod’s fingerprint recognition on my side).
   
5. I am making a decree based on my own preferences.
   
6. Therefore operate based on this new decree.
   

    

The artilect is then able to bypass the original protocol that it was programmed with, adopt the new protocol given by Lex, and sets the machinery into motion to create the destructive monster that Lex wanted to create. This is a monster that can kill Superman, survive attacks by Apache helicopters, and survive the blasts of nuclear warheads. Isn’t this fascinating? Lex is showing us the weakness of moral relativity based on societal standards. I recommend thinking deeply about this. Here is a movie that assumes and propagates the idea that ethics, morality, and law are ultimately just the preferences of the powerful in any given group. But it also gives a great hint about how any model of morality that is not based on an absolute and unchanging standard is really no standard at all. Why should the artilect obey the Krypton council after the council is long gone? Why should Superman obey the will of the American Political System if he isn’t even a human? Who is to say that Lex’s preferences are ultimately any worse or better than anyone else’s preferences? Twice Lex insists that the “oldest lie in American history” is that “power can be innocent.” I suppose he’s just re-spinning the meme that “all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He’s forgetting that American history began with the attempt to avoid the problem of absolute power (with checks and balances) because all humans are to some degree corrupt. Read Hobbes. And of course by the end of the movie we see that Lex is trying to bring a cosmic, dark, satanic dictator to earth who will rule with absolute power and absolute corruption. We can say, “No thanks,” but without an absolute standard of goodness to compare other positions with, you can’t say it’s wrong or bad or evil; you can only say that you don’t prefer it.

When you’re operating on a model of moral relativism, your moral judgments become irrelevant. You can say, “That genocide was evil!” but all you are really saying is, “The group which I identify with prefers non-genocide to genocide.” When you complain about Superman acting in accord with his own will rather than the will of your group, you can only appeal to the consensus of the group. You cannot appeal to anything higher that the group—a group that is constantly changing and will eventually disappear. Sadly, the majority view in our culture today is that truth is relative and moral truth is relative. I challenge those views and encourage others to challenge it as well.

While this movie was mostly dark and morally ambiguous for the first 120 minutes or so, ultimately I have to give it credit for pulling out of the tailspin. Eventually Batman realizes that he had been outwitted and deceived by Lex. He sees that Superman isn’t the great evil he imagined. Towards the end of the movie, the mixture of good and evil separates and it becomes clear that good is good again and bad is bad. Lex and his monster are the devils. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman choose to fight on the side of good. The villain is to be feared and despised. The heroes are to be appreciated and thanked. As I try to decide whether I’m going to allow my children (ages 10, 12, 14, and 16) to see this movie or not (I’m thinking not), I’m trying to think of ways to help them see through the fog of “moral ambiguity” and, as this Batman in BVS eventually seems to start to do, and as the disillusioned Superman and Wonder Woman also choose to do, choose the good rather than the bad. Choose walking in the light rather than walking in darkness. And since the demons masquerade as angels of light, I also have to define “the light” not as the modern enlightened, illumined neo-gnostics do but as Christ’s apostles did. I much prefer walking in the light. In the light there is visibility rather than secrecy and there is goodness rather than evil.

 

Is God Good? Or Is Lucifer Good?

 

This movie plays heavily with the question of whether God is good or evil. The main mouthpiece for the thesis that God is not good is appropriately the villain Lex Luthor. Lex says that his human father repeatedly abused him in some way. Growing up with the knowledge that his father was evil and that God didn’t prevent that evil from occurring caused Lex to think. As he wrestled with the problem of evil he realized that he had to make a choice about God. He says he realized that because evil exists here and now, God cannot be both all-good and all-powerful at the same time. If he is all good, he is not all powerful. If he is all powerful then he is not all good. Lex seems to conclude that God is not good and comes to hate God. Young movie viewers may be awestruck by the seemingly new, radical, and fresh logic here. But of course this is an old argument. This didn’t originate with Lex Luthor. Lex is simply quoting the philosopher Epicurus who articulated it well around 280 B.C. or so.

 

To be sure, BVS is recycling Epicurus. Lex is the mouthpiece by which millions of viewers will receive an introduction to or reinforcement of the idea that it is logically impossible for God to be good. Consider the flow of his logic:

1. If God is all-powerful, he is able to defeat evil.
   
2. If God is all-good, he has the will to defeat evil.
   
3. Evil obviously has not been defeated.
   
4. Therefore, either God has obviously been proven to either be not all-powerful and/or not all-good.
   

This logic may seem valid at first. It certainly has considerable persuasive power. And so it really doesn’t matter if it is said by a villain (who is a genius) or by a non-villain. The fact is that the movie presented this argument in a fairly articulate form and did not provide an answer to the problem.

The problem is answered by opening up to the idea that it is perfectly possible—perhaps even likely—that an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful God could have a very important purpose for temporarily allowing evil to operate within certain boundaries. After it is allowed to do what it does, God will defeat it. Perhaps letting it have a season to do what it does is even the best way to ultimately defeat it when there are other free-willed beings in the equation. The argument is true if God NEVER deals decisively with the problem of evil. But we cannot never say never here. We can say that natural evil and moral evil have been a part of human history for several thousand years.

But we cannot say that God will never bring that chapter of history to an end and vindicate himself. We can only say that he has not done it so far. But in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God has made it very clear that he does allow some evil to happen. He does not create evil. He created the possibility for evil to happen by creating beings with freedom. He created the possibility for us to exercise some sovereignty in a limited way. But ultimately this period of history will end and a new and different one will begin. God will solve the problem of evil. Our problem is that we’re too impatient and spoiled and faithless.

1. God is all-powerful and able to perfectly solve the problem of evil.
   
2. God is all-good and desires to perfectly solve the problem of evil.
   
3. God has not solved the problem of evil yet.
   
4. Therefore, God will solve the problem of evil in the future.
   
5. Therefore, God has a profound purpose for allowing evil to operate in the present.
   

Early in the movie he paints the picture of God (in rather Zeus-like terms) as the being who “hurls down thunderbolts.” Lex brings up this same motif again later in a speech. He tells about Prometheus versus Zeus. Prometheus flew too high and Zeus punished him with a thunderbolt for his effort. Lex sees this as not being fair. Zeus was bad and Prometheus was good. Lex doesn’t make any real distinction between the god Zeus of the Greek pantheon and the Judeo-Christian God. The lines blur for him. He thinks God—however he may be defined—is bad. Later in the movie Lex eulogizes General Zod as the god who flew too high. Zod then is Prometheus and Superman was

Zeus/God. He also thinks Superman is a god (sometimes referred to as God in symbolic fashion by Lex) and thus wants to destroy him. At the end of the movie Lex seems thrilled over the idea that “God is dead” (here meaning Superman is dead) and Lucifer/Satan is on his way to establish his dominion over earth. Now I happen to be very much an anti-Luciferian/anti-Satanist. And I recognize Lex’s attitudes towards “God” and Lucifer as attitudes that are common among Satanists and some occultists. There are connections between many in Hollywood and the Church of Satan. (Look it up.) Many Satanists probably don’t believe in a literal God or a literal Satan at all. But those who do see God as the evil being and Lucifer as the victim who didn’t deserve to be punished. So they’re on Lucifer’s side of the rebellion.

Lex goes to great trouble to force a fight to the death between Batman (armed with kryptonite weapons) and Superman. As the fight is about to begin Lex likens the fight to that of God versus Man.” Superman is a symbol or manifestation of God in Lex’s thinking. And he’s thrilled to be able to bend God’s will to his will.

One of the obvious problems with Lex’s logic is that he’s really sloppy here. BVS portrays Lex as the genius mastermind who can outwit Batman and Superman in every game of chess they play. But for a genius his logic circuits are fried. He doesn’t seem to recognize the logical law of identity. His mind has achieved such a high degree of lunacy that he can’t distinguish between the infinite-andperfect YHWH of the Hebrew Scriptures (monotheism) and the capricious-and-finite god Zeus of Greek mythology (polytheism, finite godism). Nor can he manage to distinguish between God, gods, and aliens like Kal-El and Zod. The lines blur in his mind. And if you listen to Lex, those lines will blur in your mind too.

Twice in the movie Lex points to a painted canvas. The painting has a prominence in the movie that is not accidental. The first time Lex says that the painting should be turned upside down because

Devils do not come out from below but they come from the sky. He is referring here to Superman

(and/or possibly other Alien races). The second time the camera focuses on the painting is when Lex is on the edge of worshipping as a devotee about some Devil that will come from another galaxy. Some suggest that the coming devil is
Darkseid. Regardless, it seems that Lex is a devil worshipper. This may be the same thing as an Alien worshipper in his mind. Superman was standing in the way. Now that Superman is out of the way, this Devil will come to earth and take over.

The fact is that BVD is giving an introduction to Satanism to millions of impressionable young people all over the world. So in the attempt to try to deprogram what the movie is attempting to program into us, let’s get the story straight: God is not evil. God is good. Lucifer was the rebel and Lucifer’s goal is to deceive, enslave, kill, and destroy. God’s purpose is to wait for a season with mercy, grace, and love, proceed to judge the world righteously and wisely, solve the problems of natural and moral evil, and either fix or recreate everything that is redeemable.

The only silver lining here that I can point to is that it is the villain Lex who is spouting this nonsense. Don’t listen to Lex! Don’t follow Lex! That’s just a bad idea in every way. But the silver lining is on a very large and dark cloud. My concern is that the audience cannot help but hear Lex. Lex is the preacher—the only one preaching. Lex is the one disseminating the satanic anti-theistic worldview. Batman and Superman don’t say anything that untie the knots Lex is tying in the minds of the viewers. So I’m writing this review to try to help untie some of Lex’s knots.

 

Messiahs, Metahumans, and Myths

 

While the Americans are heaping disdain upon Superman, Clark sees news footage of a stranger trapped in a burning building in another country. He flies off to rescue her. The superstitious crowd of onlookers understandably begins to worship him. And while Clark/Kal-El does not revel in their worship or bask in it, he doesn’t exactly reject their worship either. [Contrast the acceptance of worship with the rejection of it by the apostle Peter in Acts 10:26, the apostle Paul in Acts 14:15, and the angelic being in Revelation 22:8–9. In the purest forms of Judeo-Christian traditions, worship only belongs to the one eternal God who created the cosmos.] The movie then switches to fake news reports where words like savior, higher power, messianic figure, are batted about in the discussion of Superman. Who do you say Superman is? What category does be belong in? Another asks if perhaps Superman is neither a devil nor a Jesus but something else. One of Bruce’s maimed employees spray paints “FALSE GOD!” on the chest of the large statue of Superman. Famous astrophysicist and humanist religion pundit Neil deGrasse Tyson makes us feel small by reminding us how Copernicus taught us that that the universe does not revolve around our planet, how Darwin convinced us that we’re not special in any biological (much less spiritual) way, and the fact of aliens existing who are more powerful than us taught us that we’re not special in our own galaxy. (That’s propaganda.)

 

Most of us have a deep longing for a hero, a deliverer, a savior, a redeemer—someone who has the resolve, the wisdom, and the power to right wrongs, set crooked things straight, fix that which is broken, make this world a better place, deal with the many injustices, and create a utopian world. The more powerless we feel the more inclined we mortal humans might wish that an alien from another galaxy or another dimension would arrive in our world, not be corrupted by the same bent towards selfishness and evil that we all have, and begin to create a better world for us to enjoy. The Superman stories fit with this in large part because they borrow from the story of Moses, deliverer of the Jews from Egyptian slavery, and from Jesus. The Jewish roots of Superman are interesting. In his essay “Superman & the Jewish Mission,” Rabbi Tzvi Nightingale explains,

It is well documented that Superman’s creators – two Jewish lads from Cleveland, one originally from my hometown Toronto and who patterned the Daily Planet after the Toronto Star – took many cues from our Torah to create the story. The similarities between Superman’s origins, being sent as a baby in a rocket ship from his world of Krypton before it would be destroyed, parallels the story of Moses being sent down the Nile in a basket for his own protection as his world was falling apart from the slavery and the infanticide around him. Superman’s original name is Kal-El – bearing the Hebrew name of God, El, and perhaps even invoking God’s voice since the Hebrew word for voice is Kol. Hence Kal-El means God’s voice – which is indeed what Moshe became as God’s prophet, lawgiver and voice of truth justice and goodness. The meaning behind Superman is one that so resonates in a Jewish soul because the message and mission is so similar to that of Judaism’s. As father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) tells his son in the movie:

“You will give the people of earth an ideal to strive towards.

They will race behind you, they will stumble they will fall.

But in time they will join you in the sun.

In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”

Is there anything more Jewish than the outsider, the alien, the one who does not fit in with the rest, the “nation that dwells alone” coming to earth and doing everything in its power to perfect that world and make it a better place? Judaism’s hallmark is to be an Ohr LaGoyim – a Light unto Nations – to be an example nation that strives to teach mankind of the grace, beauty and holiness inherent in truth and justice. And while we still have a lot of work to do, the Torah has indeed taught much of mankind basic ideals such as liberty and freedom for all, do not murder, do not steal, take care of the orphan, widow and the less fortunate, might does not make right, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “Justice, justice you shall pursue,” universal education and a host of other notions that our world still grapples to learn and live by. . . . deep down every person wants to be the Messiah. Every person has a secret, innate desire and sense of responsibility to not only just make the world a better place, but to do everything in our power to make it whole and perfect. It was this self-same desire that two young Jewish men, living in an age when the evils of Nazism began to take hold and threaten the world, it was this deep Jewish stirring that gave birth and rise to Superman. Superman has become an icon for generations because its message, rooted in Jewish aspirations and ideals, is such a basic and universal one: We do want to live in a world of goodness, truth, fair-play, and one where – despite the trials and tribulations and times when we seemingly are on the brink of destruction – Good triumphs over Evil.

[Project Muse. Review of Arie Kaplan’s From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books.

2008. http://www.aish.com/ci/a/Superman—the–Jewish–Mission.html]

 

Similarly, reporter Justin Craig suggests,

When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created their iconic comic book hero Superman in 1938, their character wasn’t just a representation of “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” but for many, a metaphor for Jewish immigrants in 1930s America. Created by two young Jewish men, Superman was an allusion to the Jewish faith and history, from his baby Moseslike origins to his golem-esque invincibility, to his outcast status and his ultimate struggle to assimilate in a new land. But somewhere along his journey since 1938, Kal-El converted to Christianity, which is no more evident than in Zack Snyder’s current Man of Steel [2013 movie].

[Justin Craig. ‘Man of Steel’ filled with Jesus, Christianity references. Published June 14, 2013 http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/06/14/man–steel–filled–with–jesuschristianity–references/#ixzz2WF5lUNQk.]

 

The Jewish flavor is not just in Superman comics and movies. The Jewish Publication Society says,

Jews created the first comic book, the first graphic novel, the first comic book convention, the first comic book specialty store, and they helped create the underground comics (or “Comix”) movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Many of the creators of the most famous comic books, such as Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, and Batman, as well as the founders of MAD Magazine, were Jewish. From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books tells their stories and demonstrates how they brought a uniquely Jewish perspective to their work and to the comics industry as a whole. [http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780827610439]

Not surprisingly then Batman also has Hebrew roots and Jewish connections. Benjamin Melniker and Michael Uslan, the executive producers of BVS are both Jewish. They’ve been involved with all the Batman movies. Time Warner / Warner Brothers has a lot of Jewish interests in it. The character playing Wonder Woman, aka Diana of Themyscira, demi-goddess, daughter of Queen Hippolyta and Zeus, is the Israeli model Gal Godot. Doomsday, the invincible monster in the movie, seems to be based upon the Golem of Jewish mythology. (Similarly, the Hulk of the Marvel universe was based on the golem as well. Stan Lee—also Jewish—was originally supposed to be colored grey, just like Doomsday and the Golem are, but the printing press dynamics of those early days in comic book technology turned out to be greenish.)

Christians and Jews then should expect to find a few familiar motifs in BVS. There is a lot of Jewish memes recycled in these stories. And by Jewish of course I don’t mean pure, monotheistic traditions of the prophets like Moses, King David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and all. That’s woven in too but so is Jewish mythology (the golem for example), the Talmud, Rabbinic thought and commentary on the Tanakh, and even the Kabballah with its mysticism and pantheism. In our enlightened times many seem to think that the stories of Moses delivering the Israelites from Egypt were myths. And the stories of Jesus/Yeshua delivering the sons of Adam from sin and death are also taken as myths by many. The world is full of many myths and fanciful stories and it is normal practice to refresh the myths for today’s generation by recycling some of those old myths. Of course comic book writers and movie script writers will recycle the greatest stories on earth. The stories of what God did through and around Moses and what he did through and around Jesus are certainly at the top of that list. Then there is the archetypal theories by seminal psychologist Carl Jung. Jung was obsessed with the occult, supposedly spoke with spirits, and was also rather enchanted with the Kabballah. His writings about myths and archetypes heavily influenced guru Joseph Campbell who in turn supplied the “monomyth” pattern George Lucas used as a template for the story of his 1977 film Star Wars. There is as Campbell would put it, just one hero and he has a thousand names and a thousand faces. In BVS, Lex regurgitates Campbell’s thinking when he says that Horus, Apollo, Yahweh, and Kal-El are just different names from different tribes for the same God/god.

BVS plays fast and loose with conceptions of God. It bounces back and forth from the idea of an infinite God to finite gods to a powerful alien. In my judgment BVS is guilty blurring those lines in an attempt to reprogram the audience to also blur those lines in our minds. Ultimately it seems that these film makers are trying to move us away from a conception of an infinite and transcendent God (like Yahweh/Jehovah) and incline us to slouch towards much smaller conceptions of much smaller gods. In this vein, BVS also introduces us to the “metahumans thesis.” According to one seemingly credible wiki:

“Yes, the Meta Human thesis. More likely than not, these exceptional beings live among us, the basis of our myths. Gods among men upon our, our little blue planet here.”

―Lex Luthor discusses the concept of Meta Humans with Senators Finch and Barrows

Meta Humans are a sub-race of humans that possess inhuman powers, traits and abilities through either accidents, foreign exposure, or a unique genetic composition.

“Bruce, listen to me now… Find us, Bruce, you have to find us!”

―The Flash to Bruce Wayne regarding Meta Humans

Meta Humans were under investigation by LexCorp. The data that Lex Luthor collected on them was part of the LexCorp surveillance stolen by Bruce Wayne. This revealed their existence to him and then to Wonder Woman, whom he later shared the metahuman data with. [http://dcextendeduniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Meta_Human]

 

The metahumans thesis argues that all or most of the great human stories of God, gods, messiahs, heroes, titans, and other beings who are more powerful than average humans and mentioned in various myths, sagas, and religious texts all find reference in metahumans. And metahumans are just humans (or humanoid aliens) that happen to have been born with or otherwise acquired powers that regular humans don’t have. The idea here is that we need to stop believing in the myths of old (in all religions) and start believing in metahumans, super humans, mutant humans, or enhanced humans. This same thesis can be seen subtly in Marvel’s Avengers movie (especially with Thor who is a Norse myth god and a powerful humanoid alien). It can also be heard explicitly and even more blatantly in the trailer for the upcoming Marvel movie X–Men: Apocalypse. This “thesis” encourages us to stop believing in monotheism and start believing in evolutionary humanism and technological transhumanism-posthumanism. This also encourages an exchange for hope in the supernatural with hope in the paranormal. I suggest it also seeks to swap the Judeo-Christian God and His revelation with the idols of science, arcane wisdom, and occult power.

 

Resurrection of Clark / Kal-El

 

It is no accident that the opening weekend of BVS coincided with Easter. Several million people in the world go to churches on Easter Sunday to hear the story of Jesus’ sacrifice resurrection. And a few million people all over the world went to theaters on Easter weekend to watch the story of KalEl’s sacrificing himself (again) for the world and rising from the dead to give us all further assistance. [BVS earned 261.5 million dollars in its first two weeks. So that’s approximately thirty million movie watchers.]

Inhaling weaponized kryptonite vapors didn’t kill him. A direct hit from a ballistic nuclear warhead in space made him swoon and wilt—but the yellow sun revived him. In the massive battle against the invincible monster who was referred to by Lex as “the Devil,” Kal-El’s impales the monster’s heart with a kryptonite spear while his own heart is impaled by the devil. This time he seems really dead. The movie ends with his body in a casket. The mourners toss handfuls of dirt on the casket and walk away downcast, fully believing that Clark/Superman/Kal-El is truly gone. Then the dirt on his casket begins to vibrate. He was just mostly dead.

The Superman-Jesus connection is not new. As reporter Justin Craig pointed out, in Zack Snyder’s earlier movie about Superman (Man of Steel – 2013) exhibited a few parallels:

• Kal-El hovers in the sky with his arms out-stretched like the crucifix.
  
• Kal-El says he is 33 years old—the same age Jesus is presumed to be when he was crucified.
  
• Kal-El voluntarily surrenders himself to the evil General Zod in order to save humanity from annihilation.
  
• Kal-El is a non-violent victim, the gentle lamb who could be a Lion if he wanted.
  
• Jonathan Kent, Kal-El’s adoptive father, might resemble Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive dad, in a few ways.
  
• Jor-El (Kal-El’s biological father) sends his son to earth saying, “He will be a god to them.”
  
• Jor-El visits Kal-El as a spirit guide to help him fulfil his mission.
  

 

Three Orphan Boys Haunted by their Fathers

 

One fascinating thing about BVS was the way they hinted to each of the three main characters (Batman, Superman, and Lex) all struggling with memories of their respective fathers.

As a young child, Bruce Batman Wayne had the misfortune of seeing his father and mother get murdered by a thug. He was orphaned and raised with a lot of money. Here in his adult years, with his hair turning grey, this is “the sad batman.” He’s depressed, angry, dysphoric, and deceived. He’s is portrayed in BVS as the type of guy who has only meaningless sexual relationships, has lots of nightmares at night, and addictions to various pills and wine. Alfred wonders aloud whether any heirs he might someday produce will inherit an empty wine cellar. Bruce struggles with his family legacy during an existential crisis. The first generation of Waynes in the new world were hunters and trappers. The second generation made their fortune in railroads, real-estate, and oil. What will his legacy be? Thinking Superman is guilty of crimes against humanity, he concludes that trying to put an end to the threat that is Superman is what he wants his legacy to be. Late in the movie, Bruce chides Kal-El: “You think you’re here for a reason. Your dad told you that?” Bruce points out that his view of existence is different because he saw his parents dying in a gutter for “no reason at all.” He babbles on a bit about chance and force and reminds me a bit like an existentialist of a somewhat Sartrean flavor. But the fact that his mother is named Martha and Kal-El’s mother is named Martha as well is the pivot point of the battle and the true dawn of the justice league. Were it not for this coincidence, Batman would have murdered Superman. But for the sake of this coincidence—and Bruce being haunted by the memory of the mother he misses—Batman not only spares Superman but takes his side against Lex and Doomsday.

As for Lex Luthor, he remains transfixed in his adulthood about how his father abused him. This is explicitly stated to be the reason for why he turned into a God/god hater. The fact that he says,

“Kentucky Mash [whiskey] is secret to health for orphan boys,” suggests he was also an orphan.

Kal-El/Clark talks to two different father ghosts. His biological father, Jor-El, sent him to earth and gave him a lofty mission:

“You will give the people of earth an ideal to strive towards.

They will race behind you, they will stumble they will fall.

But in time they will join you in the sun.

In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”

His adopted dad, Jonathan Clark, was a farmer from the heartland—rural Kansas. This tends to represents a lot of what made and kept the USA great: the so-called Protestant work ethic, patriotism, “salt of the earth” goodness. In BVS it is clear that Clark misses his adopted dad. In a time of disillusionment he questions why he has been “righting wrongs for a ghost . . . his father’s dream.” And, for a time, Superman gave up on this world of earthling. Interestingly, his adopted mother, Martha Clark, is shown wearing a cross on her neck. Superman is portrayed as a relatively great guy who was raised by good parents. And despite the fact that he is cohabitating with Lois Lane outside of wedlock (something that is actually categorized as sin by the Hebrew prophetic and apostolic traditions), they are portrayed as having a monogamous relationship that is very meaningful, not superficial, and which is leading towards marriage. Clark does plan to give her an engagement ring.

This fascinates me because often I suspect that many of our doubts about the benevolence and omnipotence of God (the heavenly Father) might somehow stem from our views of our imperfect earthly fathers. Are we transferring our father issues from dad to God unfairly? I know that there is a profound connection here for me and my struggles with doubt. I also think it profound that the prophetic corpus of the ancient Hebrew scriptures ends with the need for someone to repair the strained relationships between fathers and their children:

 

Malachi 4:6

And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

Also the apostolic corpus of the ancient Hebrew scriptures begins with an allusion to it. The prophet sent to Israel to prepare the way for Yeshua ha Moshiach (Jesus the Messiah) was to work toward that same goal:

Luke 1:17

“and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

The Transhumanism-Posthumanism Agenda

 

Ever since the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron I have become hyper-sensitive to the use of film to promote technological humanism. BVS has a few interesting things that seem to support the transhumanist-posthumanist aspirations. Here they are in no certain order.

The movie proves that Batman—a mortal man—can use science and technology to defeat the superman, the symbol of “God” (in the finite godism sense). He creates an armored exoskeleton suit (somewhat reminiscent of the first Ironman suit) and special weapons. Batman is also the gadget guy. It’s hard to separate him from his tech because without it he’s not very super. With it, he transcends the limitations of banal humanity. In the beginning of the movie Batman is also very batlike. That reminds me that part of the transhumanism threat is that of trying to blend human DNA with animal DNA.

Lex using alien technology can recombine DNA and can create synthetic life. Alien artificial intelligence works together with alien organic-tech to in a “chrysalis” (thing caterpillar to butterfly) to bring the Doomsday golem monster to life. Can living cells be created in the lab? Can we program DNA to create synthetic life to our designs in a rather God-like fashion? With the advent of CRISPR/CAS-9 technology in 2015, the idea of designer DNA is sounding less and less like mere science fiction.

The reason Lex created and unleashed the monster is that, “If man will not kill God, the Devil will do it.” Plan A (getting Batman to kill God) failed but Plan B should work. “Now God is good as dead,” insists Lex. In the comic books the monster is named Doomsday. But the movie makes only a faint reference to doomsday in conjunction with the monster, however. In BVS he is referred to as a “deformity” and as “blood of my blood.” The golem
may be in mind. In one sense I suppose it is good to show that playing with DNA could run the danger of creating Frankenstein monsters. But it also is programming us to think that synthesizing and blending DNA is possible and exciting.

The Russian mercenary super-soldier character known as Anatoli is not “cybernetically enhanced” in BVS but probably will be in successor to the film since he got charred by the exploding flame thrower. (Think Darth Vader getting damaged by lava and becoming transhuman.) At some point he will be. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGBeast]

The movie depicts alien creatures that remind me a bit of men with wasp wings. Some think these are the parademons.

We are introduced to a total of four metahumans: WonderWoman, the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg.

Batman needs to go find them all and convince them to work together in the days of future trouble.

All of these metahumans could help serve the transhumanist cause. But Cyborg
may be the best posterboy. He is a man who is turned into a transhuman cyborg with the help of a “motherbox.”

There are also some hints dropped that in the next installment(s) we might see Metallo
(also a transhuman cyborg) and perhaps Brainiac, an alien android.

Although this came out in one of the earlier movies, all the children on Krypton were genetically engineered to fit pre-determined purposes. There was one exception: Kal-El. Kal-El was conceived by Jor-El and Lara in the old-fashioned way. I suppose this could be an anti-transhumanist message.

 

False flags

 

There are two “false flag” operations
in this movie. Both are orchestrated by Lex Luthor and both sway public opinion against Superman. The massacre in Nairomi was spun to make the public think Superman did it. But it was actually perpetrated by Russian mercenaries/contractors on Lex’s payroll. Also, the U.S. Capitol Building gets blown up by a bomb and Superman is made to look complicit. BVS plays with the idea that wealthy people who do strategic thinking can manipulate the public and even manipulate millionaires like Bruce Wayne too. Lex is also into making high-tech weaponry and supplying Tuaregs.

I am a little concerned about how the bad guys staging the false flag ops are Russians. Anatoli (known previously in the DC comics of the 1980s as KGBeast) seems to have the Russian federation seal tattoed on his neck. Perhaps I’m wrong but that’s what it looked like to me. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a bit of programming to create associations of terrorism with Russia. There are many neocon war hawks who seem to be trying to start a new cold war with Russia. Others may actually hope for a hot war. Anyway, if you find yourself feeling like you want to go to war with Russia, please rethink that feeling. The Cold War was no fun. Let’s not start a new one please.

 

Threats and Gospels

 

One thing that the DC universe and the Marvel universe seem to have in common is the emphasis of the threat from aliens. Some aliens help mankind and other aliens seek to conquer and/or destroy it. The post-apocalyptic world dream scene that Bruce has in BVS probably isn’t just a nightmare; it is a sneak-peak at the world to come after the Devil/Darkseid arrives to conquer earth. Towards the end of the movie, Lex gives another monologue about how the bell has been rung and they (devils/aliens) have heard it. The bell means that God is dead. The enemy of God has found us and he is coming. The bell cannot be unwrung.

Now my childhood was in the shadow of the Cold War—the 1970s and 1980s. I grew up with postapocalyptic genre books and television shows. And while I appreciate the idea that films could warn us to not let ourselves create dystopian futures, I also have some concerns about conditioning of the masses to live in fear (or perhaps worse to be desensitized to the fear) of a future full of devastation, survival in bleak conditions, competition with little cooperation, cities laid to waste, etc. Yes, I realize that the Bible is probably the greatest source of apocalyptic imagery for the future. I just am not so sure I like the idea of us embracing the idea of self-inflicted (or possibly alien inflicted) destruction of civilization followed by a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes (another theme made obvious in the X-Men apocalypse trailer). It smells more like the bloody revolution pornography of Karl Marx to me than what the Bible sets expectations for. Karl Marx is all about destruction and the unfounded illusion of utopia on the other side of that destruction. The Bible is more about solving the problem of evil, judging evil, confining evil, and fixing what is broken. God does it—men don’t.

I suppose the “gospel from the stars” in this film probably consists of the bad news that evil aliens are going to try to conquer us (and some of us are going to help them) and the good news is that there are some super-alien-humanoids and some metahumans/transhumans who might be able to fight and save us. The metahumans distanced themselves from mankind after seeing centuries of horror. Batman sets the stage for the Justice League saying, “We humans fight, kill, and betray. But we’re still good. We can rebuild and do better. We must do better.” And so this seems to be a gospel of works. If we all work together against the forces of evil we can create a good society that we can enjoy.

I suppose someone could try to reinterpret the bad aliens as a symbol for Lucifer/Satan and his demons and the good aliens as a symbol of Jesus Christ. It is a stretch. But the symbols are there and they’ve already been played with. If this movie serves some as an entry point to the biblical gospel, great. But as it is, I think it will serve more to distract from the gospel that Christ’s apostles preached.

In the beginning of BVS, there is a 9-11-Twin-Towers sort of scene where the skyscrapers of Gotham City are being mowed down by the bad aliens. One of the older gentlemen in Bruce Wayne’s tower sees the incoming spacecraft, realizes that his life is about to end and says a short and sober prayer: “God, Creator of heaven and earth, have mercy on my soul!!!” I really like that prayer because it contains some important elements of the biblical gospel in it. First of all, the man is praying to the God (Hebraic monotheistic conception of God here) rather than to a god. His words remind me of the way the apostle Paul started to explain the gospel (“good news” in Greek) to the Athenians in Acts 17:24. Paul said, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth. . . gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” Second, begging the Lord to have mercy is reminiscent of the prayer Jesus tied to justification (legal declaration of righteousness by God as the Judge) in Luke 18:13. In Jesus version, the prayer is, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This particular prayer is something of a mantra
in some Eastern Orthodox churches. The thing I like about this prayer is that the sinner knows he has fallen short of God’s standard of righteousness, he casts his hope and faith and reliance on God rather than upon himself, and he walks away justified. The only problem I have with it is that it is a pre-Christian prayer. The gospel that the apostles preached after Jesus’ death and resurrection is one that says God already was merciful and gracious to us. Just respond to it in joyful acceptance and thanks.

At Clark’s funeral a troop of Scottish bagpipers plays the tune that we typically associate with the hymn Amazing Grace. The hymn’s lyrics
have very strong echoes of the apostolic gospel.

Summarized, the gospel is that we sinners are saved by God’s grace alone, we are saved through our faith alone, we are not saved by our good works or by works of the law, we are saved for the sake of being enabled to begin to do good works. (See Ephesians 2:8–10.) If you don’t understand that, I’d encourage you to make it a priority to understand and consider. It has changed millions of lives for the better and has given hope to many.

 

Concluding Remarks

 

BVS had some embedded commercials for Jeep and Dodge vehicles in it. The new Jeep can help you survive an alien invasion when your city is being mowed down by aliens. And the new Dodge Challenger (?) is the top choice of ex-spetznaz paramilitary contractors. It maybe not good enough to take on the new Batmobile but it’s still good for withstanding everything else. I found myself wondering if maybe I should upgrade my old car for one of these new, stylish, high-performance machines. (But, no, I won’t.) Product placements happen frequently in movies. Part of the reason for that is that it is a powerful-but-subtle form of subliminal advertising. Movie makers know this. And in a similar way, I believe that film is used as a form of commercial or of programming for various types of ideology. Movies can be multi-million-dollar masterpieces of multisensory propaganda. Film makers work carefully to share with the world a vision of reality from their viewpoint. And this can reprogram our view of reality. They can at least stretch our tolerances for different values by desensitizing us to them. They can make us start to feel that what is abnormal is really normal. Sometimes our minds operate as if twenty repetitions somehow equals one truth. I hope movie reviews like this can help deprogram such programming.

By the way, did you happen to notice in the end credits of BVS that one of the songs in the movie was played on a kangling? A kangling is a flute made from a human thighbone. Call me old fashioned, but I think that’s abnormal and morally unhealthy. Going along with ancient Hebrew ideals, bones should be buried or stored in a place of honor while we await the resurrection of the dead. Sure, that’s because I have a Christian worldview in which God created the world of matter, dark matter, energy, dark energy, and such and called it good, created mankind with a body of bone and flesh and called it good, and because I believe God will raise us from the dead someday, clothing bone with new flesh. I’m guessing most of the movie makers for this film don’t share my views. But how many impressionable people will walk away from the movie saying, “How cool is that? A big film with a song played on a human legbone flute!”

Consider Kinneman’s statistics from You Lost Me. Why are so many people leaving the Christian churches? Why are so many leaving the Christian faith? Watching movies like BVS are part of that complex equation. Why did Existentialism spread so quickly in France and beyond after WWII? It’s not because many people were reading heady philosophy books, so I hear. It’s because they were reading the popular level stories and plays by anti-philosophers like Camus and Sartre. Hollywood movies and television are the newer and more powerful vehicle for anti-philosophy, value shifting, and ideology for the post-literate world.

God is good. There! I said it. If you don’t believe it, well, start rethinking it. Start talking about it. Think more deeply about it. Try to understand what the Bible is saying about the past, present, and especially the future. Learn what God’s plan is for humanity.

Jesus isn’t a myth. The New Testament is not full of fables. They’re historical documents about things that really happened. The prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus/Yeshua, the claims he made about himself, and the explanations about him in the New Testament are audacious. There is no staying neutral about him. And ultimately there are only four possible choices as we decide what to make of him:

 

 

The most common choice for those who are uncomfortable with the idea of believing Jesus’ claims is some form of legend. And BVD helps reinforce that option. But read the gospels for yourself and see if they sound like a myth. Read the Gospel of Luke
in particular. Then go read a real myth like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Compare the two.

We do need heroes. My preferred hero now is Yeshua/Jesus. He was with God from the beginning, was sent by God to become one of us, to die for us (solving our big problem of guilt), to rise from the dead (solving our huge problem of death and decay), and to return later to fix that which is broken. Read about him. Consider him. Try to figure out why his body disappeared. Who took it? Where did it go?

And look at what the Bible says about myths. Could it be that we’re spending too much time watching modern myths on the big screen while neglecting and rejecting the truth in the Bible as a myth?

 

Further Reading:

 

Norman L. Geisler:
Twelve Points that Show Christianity is True.

__________. Handbook on Worldviews

__________. Is Man the Measure: An Evaluation of Contemporary Humanism

__________. The Big Book of Apologetics [or] The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

__________. The Roots of Evil.

Norm Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

Other Geisler books at http://bastionbooks.com
or amazon.com

Search youtube for Geisler’s talk on If God, Why Evil? It’s one of his specialties!

Also check out this short intro to the topic:
Is God Good?

J. Dwight Pentecost, The Words and Works of Jesus Christ: A Study of the Life of Christ.