Superman Vs. Batman: Battle of The Franchises Part 1

In the first installment of Battle of the Franchises we take a look at the first superman movie compared to the Tim Burton Batman.

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By googleplex - 8/17/2012
Pretty much since the beginning of their conceptions, both Superman and Batman have been destined to lock into battle with each other. It makes sense considering their opposing moralities and different opinions on dealing with criminals.

However a legitimate battle holds several problems given the characters themselves. If a villain pinned the two into a death match then either they'd team up and find a way out of the situation or one of them would sacrifice themselves so the other could live. The only way it would work is if one of them was hypnotised (most likely Superman since hypnotising Batman would take away his main advantage which is his intelligence) and in that case the other hero would focus his efforts on reversing the hypnotism. Also I don't count the fight in The Dark Knight Returns since Batman had plenty of outside help.

So in order to create a truly great fight I decided to compare their movie runs since they are eerily similar. Both franchises started off with a movie that defied what people thought of the respective properties and layed the groundwork for all future CBMs, both had a sequel that caused the director to get booted out of the franchise for some reason, both then had two sequels focusing more on comedy that destroyed the franchise by the fourth movie, then years later both got a reboot with the help of Christopher Nolan. Because of these similarities it only seems fair comparing the two in order to see which franchise reigns supreme, and we'll start with the legendary movies that started it off, Superman the Movie vs Batman.

First of all Superman the Movie, which came out at a time that was overrun with crime dramas (in fact the original draft for the movie involved Superman trying to stop an assassination attempt on the Pope). Not only that but superhero movies up to that moment were usually thought of as low budget serials or something similar to the Batman TV series. Then came Richard Donner who created the first superhero movie on a relatively high budget. The movie also has become sort of a blueprint for superhero origin movies that even directors today claim as inspiration for their own take on such popular comic book characters.

Second their's Tim Burton's Batman, appearing in a time when superhero movies died out thanks to Superman 4 (we'll get to that one later). Up until the release of the movie the general image of Batman was based off of Adam West's take. With the release came the first genuinely serious take on a superhero which also included dark themes that eventually lead to other superheroes coming to the silver screen such as Blade.

I'm going to spoil something for you guys and say that this is without a doubt the most difficult of all the comparisons to make (in fact I would have done them last except they were both released first). There's the cast for both which are remarkably amazing for both, their moments of emotional strength, comprehension of the characters and how they worked, everything was so well done.

As difficult the decision was I ultimately decided to side with Tim Burton's Batman, mostly because of how it handled the origin (which is pretty original even by today's standards). You see in Superman his origin is told as a major part of the movie. In Batman however it starts off with the caped crusader already active in the city and then eventually show a small flashback that tells the audience all they need to know about why he became who he is. While I do enjoy how Superman focuses on his entire life up to his first major adventure I just preferred the mystery surrounding the character.

So there's my comparison on the first movies in both the Superman and Batman franchises. Like if you liked it and comment below on what you thought of these two movies. Also be sure to write what other comparisons you'd like me to make. Tomorrow we'll be looking at the sequels that got the studio's panties in a bunch. See you then.

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