dewline | Movies: Batman v Superman

Had a thought...

....and one that I can't help but be drawn to.

There's a point in the run up to the closing fights of the movie, after Lois gets back to the Planet after her misadventure with Lex and Knyazev. She asks Perry for the use of the Daily Planet helicopter, and admits point-blank that "it isn't for a story". Her words. She doesn't explain any further than that, and Perry relents with an "on the roof!" budget-control admonishment. After all, newspapers are not what they once were, as Perry reminded Clark more than once.

I think back to Man of Steel. Things were said or left unsaid between Perry and Lois on several occasions about her pursuit of Clark's story in the weeks - months? - leading up to the Black Zero fight over and in Metropolis. And he had a clear view of that kiss just before that Zod made his last vengeful assaults on New Troy.

I'm going to call it. For this version of their stories? Perry knew - from the day Clark showed up to become a stringer - who he was hiring. Exactly who he was hiring. You do not become and continue to serve as a high-ranking editor at one of the last newspapers still standing on this planet without being attentive and observant of what's going on around you. His reasons for his silence are his own, and will be revealed or not at the choosing of the writers and directors of future instalments of this series of DCU movies. If Laurence Fishburne, as the actor currently holding that role, has any theories of his own and is not barred by non-disclosure agreements from airing them, I'd be interested to read them.

Another point about the aftermath, if I may dare: people in high places in Washington - in this version of the DCU - are aware of all the names of the hero they've buried. And where the real remains are. And are going along with the shell game of the public and private grave sites. At minimum, Defence Secretary Calvin Swanwick has to have put the clues together as far back as his tenure as CO of USNorthCom during the battle of Smallville in MoS. The drone hunts at the end of that movie were for show. "We tried and failed. He saved the whole planet. Let's give him some breathing room. Okay?" I wonder how much political tap-dancing he had to do to keep people from digging any further.

Not that any of it helped where Lex and his money and influence and his father/god/devil fixation was concerned...and whatever it is infecting both his dreams and those of Bruce Wayne...

And I'll just leave that there behind the cut. I'll probably edit that out in about a month after original posting, if that's alright.