Friday, September 23, 2016

Batman v Superman v Watchmen: Creating a Shared Universe

A few days ago I was listening to the Batman v Superman soundtrack while writing and it made me think of the movie and then on one of those random tangents I got thinking that that movie, Man of Steel, and Watchmen are all DC products directed by Zack Snyder so wouldn't it be neat if we could find a way to mash them together?  So as an entirely pointless thought exercise, here's how we could create the "Snyderverse" and use Watchmen as a springboard to Man of Steel and BvS.

The first thing is that in BvS, Bruce Wayne's parents die in 1981 in a Gotham City alley.  So let's bump that up four years to 1985 when Watchmen takes place.  And instead of a Gotham City alley to a random gunman, let's say they're killed when Adrian Veidt sets off a Dr. Manhattan-type explosion in Gotham (among other cities) and since the whole world thinks it really was Dr. Manhattan, that gives young Bruce a reason to hate god-like "superheroes."

As Gotham rebuilds, the city is plagued with crime and corruption.  So Bruce does some research into previous superheroes like Nite Owl II, the Comedian, and Rorschach who are all retired and/or dead and creates the Batman to combat crime on the streets of Gotham.

Around the same time in Kansas, young Clark Kent is starting to manifest superpowers.  Since "Dr. Manhattan" killed like 15 million people in 1985, people are needless to say a little edgy about superpowers, so his father wisely tells him that he should never, ever use his powers in front of people, not even to save his father's life.

Then you fast forward to 2013 and evil Kryptonians come down from the sky and Superman reveals himself to the world.  Like in the beginning of BvS, Bruce Wayne is near Ground Zero in Metropolis during the big Kryptonian brawl and seeing the god-like superbeings rampaging around killing people naturally brings back a lot of bad memories and so he vows to get rid of "Superman" at any cost.

Instead of Jesse Eisenberg's annoying "Lex Luthor" you could have an older, balder Adrian Veidt who is similarly an enormously rich, brilliant, egotistical businessman who sees Superman as a threat to the New World Order he created back in 1985.  Thus he invests a lot of time and money into finding and developing Kryptonite and goading Bruce Wayne into inadvertently helping him.

From there a lot of it could be pretty much the same.  Isn't that better in some ways?  It gives Bruce Wayne and the villain a more concrete motive for hating and wanting to kill Superman and it gives Clark Kent a more concrete motive for hiding his powers for so long.  And really, while DC was slapping together 80s/early 90s stories, why not add another?

If I had time I'd go write that whole thing into an awesome fanfic.

3 comments:

Cindy said...

You make it sound so logical that I have to agree.

Arion said...

Well, it's inevitable to think about the DC Cinematic Universe without keeping in mind Mr. Snyder. However, I must admit I'm not too fond of Snyder as a director. Anyway, at least I had fun reading your proposal for a shared universe.

Maurice Mitchell said...

I gotta say. While I hate both films they sound awesome when you put them together. Especially when you include Dr. Manhattan into the Batman motivation.

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