Batman V Superman: Easter Eggs and Clues In the Dr. Pepper Prequel Comics

Earlier this year, we learned that Dr. Pepper was exclusively distributing a Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice tie in/prequel comic, set in the world of the movie and released via the Blippar app.

There are five chapters, each roughly the length of a 12-page comic book story, and each featuring a different character from the film (Batman, Lois Lane, Senator Finch, Superman, and Lex Luthor), with Luthor as a through-line in every story.

Written by Christos Gage and drawn by Joe Bennett, the look and feel of the world is drawn from the film, even while Bennett’s Batman and Superman are easily recognizable for his work on titles like Justice League: Generation Lost and 52.

And, either because the filmmakers are hoping to world-build in the comic or because the creative team come from the comics industry and are used to working in a larger DC Universe, there are a few little Easter eggs and supporting characters sprinkled into the comic.

So…what did we see? What did we miss? Read on, and comment below.

PETE’S PEARLS

When Batman takes out Pete the jewel thief in his chapter, we get a shot of a broken string of pearls he’s been stealing being cast into midair.

A broke string of pearls, falling to the ground, is one of the most common recurring images in Batman mythology — usually it happens at the time of his parents’ murder, as Joe Chill tears the necklace from Martha Wayne’s neck mid-struggle, and then kills the pair as the pearls drop to the ground around them.

So…yeah. It’s hard to imagine this was a purely coincidental panel.

FIREFLY

Here’s a face you might remember from Gotham, although here it’s the original Firefly rather than his sister.

And, yeah, that’s Firefly. He isn’t explicitly named in the comic, but besides the fact that he’s got a pretty distinctive look and approach to his craft, I checked in with prequel comic writer Christos Gage on Twitter, and he confirmed it as Firefly with a simple “Yep.”

In case you can’t tell by the look of it, Firefly is Garfield Lynns — a pyromaniac supervillain with a high-powered flamethrower and a jetpack.

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS

During that final scene of the Batman issue, check out the monitors Lex is watching…

…specifically that top-left monitor, which appears to be a modified (Robin-less) riff on Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns cover.

This is especially worth noting because in the world of Batman V Superman, we know that Batman operates with swift brutality that worries Superman and some authorities. That lines up with the world of The Dark Knight Returns, in which Bruce Wayne retired after Robin’s death but then returned to action with a bloody vengeance years later.

SIMULATION…

During a military simulation, a theoretical Kryptonian lays waste to a city.

But take a look at that damage pattern. It looks pretty much exactly like the damage pattern Zod created by blasting away at the building.

Seems like a fairly meaningless coincidence, but I will say that after 9/11, we started seeing filmmakers and the like reusing the same handful of iconic, haunting images. It’s possible that in the world of Batman V Superman, the battle of Metropolis could have a similar impact.

SUICIDE SQUAD?

In a meeting with Senator Finch, a number of Congressional and military officials talk about their concerns about Superman.

One of them looks…pretty familiar. Could this unnamed character be the military man Amanda Waller was talking to about assembling the Suicide Squad in the first trailer?

THE COMMITTEE

The Senate committee to which Superman is called to testify has generally been assumed to be some kind of direct response to the attack on Metropolis, and Superman’s presence assumed to be borderline prosecutorial.

That last bit may still be true, but it looks like the committee is not actually looking specifically into the Battle of Metropolis, but instead casting a wider net for what Superman’s overall impact on the world is.

METROPOLIS MAILBAG

This reference to ordinary people petitioning Superman to help them through their everyday lives, believing him to be essentially all-powerful, is a telling aspect of the world of the film.

It’s also reminiscent of one of my favorite Superman stories, “Metropolis Mailbag” by Dan Jurgens and Jackson Guice. In the story, it was revealed that the Man of Steel used to spend Christmas Eve answering his fan mail, doing what he can for as many people as he can, and ruminating on the fact that he can’t do everything for everyone. It was a rumination on how inspirational Superman could be and how heartbreaking it could be from his perspective to disappoint some people who think he’s able to do anything.

The following year, the rest of the DC heroes did a “Metropolis Mailbag II,” following Superman’s death at the hands of Doomsday, in which the Justice League and others teamed up to answer Superman’s mail for him.

CONTROVERSY

Not that it’s much of a surprise at this point, but the idea that Superman didn’t do everything he could have during the Battle of Metropolis is not only a critique of Man of Steel as a film, but one which has seeped into the world of the movies and is a critique of Superman by his opponents.

THE QUEST FOR PEACE

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace was far from the only time Superman overstepped his bounds by gathering up the world’s nuclear arsenal and trying to force peace…but it’s the most memorable.

He would do it again in the late ’90s, during the Superman: King of the World storyline in which he was being manipulated to believe the world would only be safe if he took it over.

There’s a larger conversation, though, about Superman’s role in geopolitics that’s equally interesting and equally well-explored in the comics. The prequel comics here mention the idea that if Superman were to intervene on the side of the U.S. in a conflict, “paranoid dictatorships” like North Korea would view him as a threat to global security. We’ve seen in the comics, of course, that sometimes Superman can also overstep the American comfort zone in doing what he believes to be right…including in a story by Man of Steel wrter David Goyer, in which Superman (but not Clark Kent, remember) designated himself a “citizen of the world” and rescinded his U.S. citizenship as a symbolic gesture.

And, as far as paranoid dictatorships, Superman once tried to topple the leader of Qurac, a fictional Middle Eastern country in the DC Universe, after he believed the man to have endorsed terror attacks on Metropolis. It was only Superman himself coming to the realization that he couldn’t interfere with world politics, lest he be seen as a potential dictator himself, that stopped the process.

BRAINS

It’s easy to break down the Batman/Superman dichotomy as a guy with brains and a guy with brawn, but that’s oversimplifying and does a disservice to Superman.

The Man of Steel is so powerful that he has to constantly be aware of the way he’s interacting with the world around him — a problem that’s even more prevalent during battle. If he were to fight all-out, he would kill most of his opponents almost immediately.

We saw in an early episode of Supergirl that if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you can do things like inadvertently causing an oil spill while trying to put out a tanker fire, so to an extent here, we’re seeing that Superman has been learning on the job and is pretty smart about how he works.

LUTHOR’S PRESS CONFERENCE

This press conference being held by Luthor at the new LexCorp tower looks an awful lot like one we’ve seen in promotional material for the film.

It could just be that this is where he has his press conferences — or it could be that the Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice – Lex Luthor comic butts up perfectly against where he enters the film. Only time will tell.

Also: Mercy Graves has a silent cameo in this one! I’m not giving her her own section just becuase we knew she was in the movie already.

KORD OMNIVERSAL

Kord Industries/Kord Omniversal/whatever it’s called at the moment, apparently exists in the world of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The company owned by Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle and the one many fans assume would appear in the rumored Booster Gold/Blue Beetle movie, Kord Industries has also had a number of cameo appearances on Arrow and The Flash, although only as props or locations, never interacting directly with Kord himself.

Here, we see that it’s one of a number of companies moving back to Metropolis following Lex Luthor’s lead in the wake of the Man of Steel finale.

REAL ESTATE

And Lex Luthor stands to make a profit from re-selling profits that he bought in Metropolis, while also getting credit for bailing the previous property owners and other Metropolitans out of their post-Kryptonian troubles.

This is pretty much a perfect scenario for Lex, and it echoes the kind of plots he would have in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths era, where he wanted to be worshiped by the rest of the city.

And also: It means there’s another movie universe where Lex Luthor goes after real estate schemes…!