Batman v Superman: Superman Is Apollo, Batman Is Hades

Batman v Superman writer Chris Terrio compares Batman and Superman to ancient gods

Comic book heroes are our modern mythology. And as our modern mythology, the characters can certainly be likened to mythical beings (that some people are strangely devoted to). Batman v Superman writer Christ Terrio certainly believes this, and thinks Batman and Superman are like two gods who would be in opposition due to their opposing nature. He talked about this fact as well as the surprising amount of freedom he was given over the characters and story in Batman v Superman:

"Given the scale, you would think the whole thing has a corporate stench, but the way we worked there was this quality of, ‘I can’t believe they’re letting us do this.’ In superhero stories, Batman is Pluto, god of the underworld, and Superman is Apollo, god of the sky. That began to be really interesting to me—that their conflict is not just due to manipulation, but their very existence."

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So, I don’t think Chris Terrio is all that familiar with classic mythology. At least in classic mythology, Hades is an extremely chill dude, he’s all about balance, and above all, only cares about running his domain, most other things are of no importance to him. And comparing Superman to Apollo is even worse, because Apollo is pretty much a vain asshole willing to strike down anybody at the slightest insult.  So if that is in fact what we see reflected in Batman v Superman, it will be a VERY different movie than anyone expected (I’m not really expecting that). Also, this seems to really misunderstand the nature of Batman and Superman’s relationship. They are actually very much alike despite the superficial differences, they fight for the same goals and actually have a lot of the same values, just have different ways of approaching them.

But we know the end result of Batman v Superman is them coming to an understanding at least, so maybe in the course of the movie they realize what they do have in common? We’ll find out in just two weeks.

h/t CBM