Superman has arrived in Gotham City -- that, or he's surveying the apocalyptic wasteland that is Metropolis in the wake of his terrible wrath in Man of Steel. Either of those scenarios may be reflected in a new promotional image released in support of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, the new Zack Snyder film based on the DC Comics superheroes created by Bill Finger & Bob Kane and Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster.

Seriously, though, it seems likely the idea behind this image is to indeed convey the crossover element of this film in graphic style -- Superman is in Gotham, and that is dramatically important. It's more thought than most filmmakers put into their marketing and posters (including Marvel), but, unfortunately, the Superman image is just slightly more colorful than the wholly black and white Batman shot released last month, and is distinctly reminiscent of a series of posters for The Dark Knight Rises which depicted that unrelated film's principals showered in rain and debris. The net affect of this tradition is, as you can see on Twitter and everywhere promo images are overanalyzed, a pervasive sense of gloom and dread associated with these characters, who are very arguably America's best comic book superheroes.

The image comes alongside a new USA Today interview with Snyder, who who described Batman V Superman as "thicker, denser and more epic" than Man of Steel, which is really saying something for a director whose work could be likened to hefting an enormous weight from one end of the world to the other -- and I mean that as a compliment. To that end, the film also  features Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), who Snyder says will challenge Superman's understanding of the world and his own convictions.

In that way it sounds as though despite the Dark Knight getting top billing in the title, Batman V Superman is at its emotional core a sequel to Man of Steel. Indeed, Snyder claims he was in "no rush" to include Batman in his Man of Steel followup, but on the other hand it seemed organic the way our story was unfolding to start to feather him in." The director added, "And if you think that has anything to do with Marvel making a killing on mashing up all its franchises together in multi-million-dollar remixes, you are totally wrong."

OK he didn't really say that. But what Snyder did say is that the film's unusual title format -- Batman V Superman instead of Batman Vs Superman -- was the result of a decision "to keep it from being a straight 'versus' movie, even in the most subtle way," which may be the first time Zack Snyder has made a creative choice rooted in subtlety.

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