'Batman v Superman' Senator Questions Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

Today on Capitol Hill, the Senator seen grilling Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg may have had a little deja vu.

He had, after all, previously met with Lex Luthor -- as played by Jesse Eisenberg, best known for portraying Zuckerberg onscreen. This all took place, of course, in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In that film, the U.S. Senate was holding hearings into activities Superman undertook in a foreign nation which had been perceived as an act of war. Unbeknownst to the panel, Luthor had set the Man of Steel up to look like a murderer, and recruited witnesses to pose as victims of the Kryptonian in front of the US Congress.

During the hearings, a bomb went off, killing scores of people. Superman, who intuited something was wrong instants before the explosion, did not manage to save anyone, and flew away blaming himself for the tragedy.

The man who sat next to Holly Hunter's Senator Finch in the Superman hearings (and presumably got blown up) is U.S. Senator Purrington, played by real-life Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a famous Bat-fan.

"We've never had Superman as a witness," Leahy joked with local media around the time of the film's release. "And we've never had quite as much excitement as you're going to see in this hearing [in the movie]."

Fans who didn't know that might be forgiven for assuming that the man appearing onscreen either just looked similar to the actor in Batman v Superman, or that the photos circulating on Reddit today were doctored. Instead, it is more a matter of Leahy being the real world's stand-in for a Senator to the DC Universe.

OTHER: Same senator questioning zuckerberg today also cameo in BvS from r/DC_Cinematic

Leahy has previously appeared in Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as lending his voice to an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is currently available on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming services. The DC Extended Universe continues with Aquaman on December 21st, Shazam on April 5, 2019, Wonder Woman 2 on November 1, 2019, Cyborg in 2020, and Green Lantern Corps in 2020.