Superman to Battle Batman in next Man of Steel Movie

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ne of the biggest pieces of news to spew forth from this week’s San Diego Comic Con is that the next Man of Steel movie will feature both Superman AND Batman – and they’ll be fighting each other.

This news from Warner Bros has well and truly one-upped rival studio Marvel. Marvel’s top revelation at the convention was the title and arch enemy of the next Avengers film (Avengers: Age of Ultron), but even an impassioned introduction from Tom Hiddleston in full ‘Loki’ mode (which, if you haven’t seen the footage, was pretty epic) couldn’t drag too much attention away from the supremely  engaging concept of Superman Vs Batman.

Compared with Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (on which Nolan also produced) has been receiving a mostly lukewarm response from viewers and critics (although to be fair there is only one of Snyder’s Superman, and three of Nolan’s Batman). However, throwing Batman into the mix for the sequel has rekindled the interest of every fan boy and girl from one side of the globe to the other.

Still, many are questioning just how a fight between the Dark Knight and the Man of Tomorrow would actually play out, considering that Batman doesn’t technically have any superpowers. Underneath the mask, the gravelly voice, the body armour and all that tech, he’s still just surprisingly muscular billionaire Bruce Wayne, whereas Superman is Kal-El, powerful alien ultra-dude from beyond the stars.

(Interesting side note: Who else knew that Nic Cage has a son named Kal-El? Because we didn’t!)

Much as we all worship at the altar of the Dark Knight, surely the Man of Steel should be able to smush him into bat jelly using only his little finger? Many are curious to see what form the rivalry will take in the Man of Steel sequel. Batman and Superman have been thrown together before in comic form, but we get the feeling that a big screen version of the pairing may need to up the ante if the Man of Steel franchise is to prosper.

The other big question, of course, is who is going to play Batman? Henry Cavill will be returning as the boy from Krypton, but we certainly won’t be seeing Christian Bale donning the mask for fourth time (he’s hung up his cape for good, or so he says).

As usual with news from Comic-con, we’re left with far more questions than answers, but one thing we know for sure is that we will indeed be seeing Batman and Superman take each other on in Man of Steel 2. We’re not sure the DC fandom can handle the excitement.