Zack Snyder showed up at San Diego Comic Con International 2015 with a new trailer for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Now that we’ve had time to settle down after returning from the madness that is Hall H, lets take a look at the new trailer and see what we can learn from the individual frame grabs in our Batman V Superman trailer breakdown.



Batman V Superman Trailer Breakdown

First of all, if you haven’t seen the new Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer which premiered at Comic Con, go watch it now and come back for this breakdown.

A US Senate Subcommittee Has It Out For Superman

The trailer opens with Holly Hunter, who plays a US Senator in the film. She is speaking to an audience, and proclaims “Today is a day for truth.” Superman walks into the hearing, as Holly Hunter’s voice over continues: “We need to know what happened, and to know what he stands for. That kind of power, can be very dangerous.” … “Let the record show that this committee holds him responsible”

But Does The Senator Have Ulterior Motives?

Later in the trailer we see the same Senator character visiting Lex Luthor (Jessie Eisenberg) at one of his homes. Has Lex Luthor paid the Senator off? He tells her “You know the oldest lie in America Senator? Devils don’t come from the ground beneath us, they come from the sky.”

Humans Protest Our New Alien Citizen

We then see Superman drop from the sky to the US capitol to appear in front of the senate. There are a lot of signs to look at in this image, including “tell us the truth about aliens”, “Superman = illegal alien”, “This is our world, not yours”, “Earth belongs to humans”, “Aliens doom nations”. And there are a couple pro-Superman signs, like the “Share the planet” on the bottom right.

My two favorite signs are the “God Hates Aliens” sign, which is clearly a parody of or reference to the horrible Westboro Baptist Church (the production even put a color gradient on the sign, like the Westboro sign seen below), and also the sign that says “Superman Lives.” The latter seems to be an easter egg for fans, a reference to the failed Tim Burton Superman film which would have starred Nicolas Cage.

A shot from the reverse side, with the protestors in the background and Superman facing the Senate building.

Wayne Manor Has Become Decrepit

We see a shot of a man (Bruce?) walking through overgrown grass to a decrepit old brick building with boarded windows. We had heard during filming that Wayne Manor would be presented in this way, but why? Could the Wayne fortune be long dried up? Maybe Bruce left the mansion after the death of his parents or… someone else?

Bruce Wayne Is Personally and Professionally Affected By Superman’s Metropolis Destruction

We cut to a flashback of the Superman vs. Zod fight that leveled many of the buildings in Metropolis. Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne runs through the streets. He looks up while on the phone and screams. The building in front of him is being destroyed in the attack. Who is Bruce Wayne on the phone with?

Onlookers watch as one of the alien combatants flies out of the building, which begins to crumble and fall.

Bruce Wayne runs through the streets to a cloud of dust reminiscent of 9/11. He runs into it looking for something, someone.

We see him hugging a little girl as he looks up at the skies with a very angry look.

We pull back to reveal that he is in the rubble of Wayne Financial building. Is Bruce Wayne only angry about the destruction of his bank building, or were there more personal casualties?

Later in the trailer we see Bruce Wayne open an anonymous piece of mail, and inside is a photocopy of an article in The Daily Planet. While that might be Metropolis’ newspaper, where Clark Kent and Lois Lane work, the article is penned by Brad Elliott, a random staff writer. The headline reads “WAYNE TOWER DEVASTATED” with the subheading “Dozens Killed.” But more importantly is the message written on the photocopy, “YOU LET YOUR FAMILY DIE” written crazily in red pen.

Does this mean that Bruce Wayne had kids or other family members that died in the destruction in Metropolis? Or is this anonymous source talking about a previous incident — remember Wayne’s parents were murdered right in front of him as a kid. We remember this because we’ve seen it a bunch of times before, so no reason to film that again for this new reboot, right? Oh no, looks like Zack Snyder did…

And yes, that is Watchmen star Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Bruce’s father Thomas Wayne.