Since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released, there has been huge criticism about many plot holes, awful character development, and the motivations behind their actions. The fight between Batman and Superman didn’t seem reasonable or logical. Later, WB released the extended cut of the movie with a 3-hour runtime. That extended version answered many questions that had earlier arisen in the audience’s minds. Yet, one particular scene still bothers most of us when Superman says, “Save Martha” and Batman gets an instant shock since “Martha” was also his mother’s name. You know the rest of it: Batman doesn’t kill Superman, befriends him in a moment, and goes to save Superman’s adoptive mother, saying, “I’ll make you a promise. No Martha will die tonight.” I’ve seen people saying this is the cringiest thing they heard after “Hunka Hunka” by Jared Leto’s Joker.
Call me a Snyderbot or whatever, but I don’t think “Save Martha!” is just a result of bad writing or wrong dialogue placement. Rather, Superman was being smart to say this at the right time to the right person: Batman. And there are good explanations behind it. And I am going to give them to you.
A couple of questions may pop into your mind about this particular scene. Let me ask and answer them for you:
- Why did Superman say “Save Martha” instead of “Save my mom” or something like that?
- Why didn’t Batman kill Superman? Is it because they have the same mother’s name?
- How come he forgot how big of a threat Superman was to humanity?
Let’s find the answers one by one. First of all, Superman knew Batman’s true identity. Before fighting, Superman calls Batman by his real name, “Bruce, listen to me. I was wrong. You have to listen to me. Lex wants us to…” (In case you don’t know how, Superman has X-ray vision, by which he can easily spot who is behind the bat mask. Also, remember the party where Clark Kent met Bruce Wayne for the first time? With super-hearing, Clark overheard the conversation between Alfred and Bruce Wayne about the information Bruce was going to steal.) And it’s no secret that billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne lost his parents at an early age and his mother’s name happened to be Martha Wayne. So, Superman always knew that Batman and he had the same mother’s name: ‘Martha.’
In the fight, when Superman is a moment away from getting his head cracked by the Kryptonite spear, he hits Batman mentally (he doesn’t have any other option left). Instead of saying, “Chill out, man, I am here to save my mom’s life. We are cool,” he mentions the common name, “You’re letting him kill Martha. Find him, save Martha.” And that works.
The word Martha bewilders Batman. The memory of his parents’ murder flashes to Batman’s mind. He remembers how vulnerable he felt when a random thug shot both of his parents in front of him and he couldn’t do anything. He suddenly finds Superman is as helpless or powerless as little Bruce was back in the day of losing his parents. Batman no longer finds Superman to be a threat to mankind.
There’s another opinion as well.
Batman considers Superman a threat ever since he (Superman) fought Zod. Superman is not a human. The earth is not his world. According to Batman, he doesn’t or shouldn’t care about humanity or anything. He has the power to destroy the entire human race anytime he wants. That perception of Batman gets clearer in the conversation with Alfred when he says, “He (Superman) has the power to wipe out the entire human race, and if we believe there is a 1% chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty.”
But, when Superman seeks mercy by saying “Save Martha,” Batman understands that despite being an alien, Superman has made Earth his own world. And here on the planet, there are people he cares for, even ready to die for them. That makes him more human than Batman ever was. (Come on. The guy brings flowers for his girlfriend, wants to cook for her, and has sex in the bathtub; the most human thing you’ll ever see.) So, there isn’t any rational reason for Batman to kill Superman anymore. Realizing that he was wrong all along, Batman doesn’t do the killing.
I know the “Save Martha” scene is probably not the best possible way to make a ‘patch-up’ between Batman and Superman. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the scene is full of crap. Rather, the scene has its proper explanation, depth, and impact.
