A new TV-Spot for Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, the latest in the metric ton of advertising for the much-anticipated comic book punch-up, goes into particular detail about the Caped Crusader’s motivations and the nature of his beef with the Man of Tomorrow. But while more information on where Batman’s coming from in the central conflict of the film is all well and good, him paraphrasing a statement from former Vice President Dick Cheney might raise an eyebrow or two.
In the new TV spot, Batman voices his displeasure (as much of the internet did) at the massive levels of death and destruction during Superman’s final battle with General Zod at the end of The Man of Steel. Spitting his words through gritted teeth at Jeremy Irons’ Alfred, Batfleck says “He has the power to wipe out the entire human race and if we believe there’s even a one percent chance that he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty, and we have to destroy him.”
The “one percent” part of that speech may seem familiar to some, especially readers of Ron Suskind’s 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine. The book takes its name from a line of reasoning held by the Bush administration which stemmed from a pearl of wisdom dropped from the lips of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney apparently said “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.”
This isn’t the first time Batman has espoused some Bush-era political thinking, his massive, pervasive security network deployed to help find the Joker in The Dark Knight presenting something uncomfortably close to an endorsement of the Bush administration’s wide-spread use of wiretapping and surveillance in the name of public safety. But while this is technically nothing new, Batman as a mouthpiece for alarmist Bush-style “it’s us or them” extremism is still an uncomfortable spin to put on everyone’s favorite bat-themed vigilante. Add to this the recent statements from a BVS Charles Rovin that Snyder’s take on Batman may be a bit looser on his usual “no murder” rule, and the image is starting to emerge that this new version of Batman may well be……well, a crazy, possibly-murdering, Bush-politics-endorsing jerk.
You can watch the new TV-spot below and draw conclusions for yourself.