‘Batman v. Superman’
Why Are Superheroes Fighting One Another?
If anything, 2016 will go down as the Year of Superhero Civil Wars. Over the weekend, Batman fought Superman to huge box office success in DC’s Warner Bros.–backed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, proving critic-proof and shattering records as it grossed $400 million worldwide. Despite an onslaught of mixed-to-negative reviews, the audience has spoken.
Next month, Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War pits Cap and allies Falcon, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man against former fellow Avenger Iron Man and pals War Machine, Black Widow, and Black Panther in a battle over nationwide superhero regulation. If a government-enacted superhero registry sounds familiar, that’s because this concept has already been explored by another Marvel enterprise: 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies, in which Professor Xavier’s moderate mutants fight Magneto’s militant mutants, to be continued May 27 with X-Men: Apocalypse. Even February’s surprise R-rated smash Deadpool threw in X-Men’s Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
So why are so many heroes going mano-a-supermano? Since their inception, superhero comics publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics have maintained a tradition of crossovers and team-ups between their various characters — a sales gimmick to engage readers and sell more comics. More so than DC, Marvel grounded its characters within our real world (New York instead of Metropolis or Gotham), and that shared universe became a large part of Marvel’s appeal.
