The Secret Origins Of The Most Epic Superhero Movie Scenes

When Bane physically beat Batman in the Dark Knight Rises, it was a pretty shocking moment—at least for fans who hadn't read the comics. In Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, we saw few foes who could really go toe-to-toe with Batman. Even his greatest nemesis, the Joker, posed little physical threat to the Caped Crusader. All of which made it all the more surprising to see Bane lift Batman and break his back. For casual moviegoers, this scene might have come as a big surprise, but for longtime Bat-fans, the image was instantly recognizable.

The movie is paying homage to the comics' Knightfall arc, in which Bane sussed out that Bruce Wayne was Batman and decided to test his foe's strength by busting most of his worst foes out of Arkham Asylum and unleashing them on the city. After Batman was good and exhausted, the less-than-sporting Bane busted into the Batcave, wiped the floor with him in hand-to-hand combat, and finally broke him. A key difference in the comics: it took Batman many long months of professional physical therapy to recover.

Martha Kent ended up playing an unexpectedly prominent role in Batman v. Superman. Hearing that Superman also has a mother named Martha is enough to pierce Batman's cloud of rage, and he teams up with Superman to save Martha Kent and stop Lex Luthor. However, Luthor is a good student of over-the-top drama and has a henchman on standby, waiting to kill Martha with a flamethrower. In order to stop him, Batman is forced to uncharacteristically pick up a machine gun and kill him before dramatically leaping out the window with Martha. Like many aspects of Batman v Superman, this particular striking image came from Dark Knight Returns, though the comics circumstances were different.

In the comic, the street gang known as the Mutants kidnapped the child heir to the Ridley chewing gum fortune and were holding him ransom. They were planning to kill the child after they got paid, but Batman showed up to stop them. The last Mutant left standing held a gun to the child's head and threatened to murder the young heir; left with no choice, Batman used a machine gun dropped by a defeated Mutant to shoot her and save the child. Both Miller's art and writing leave the kidnapper's fate ambiguous, a marked departure from the huge explosion in Batman v Superman that likely kills Martha's tormentor as well as most of the people Batman had already knocked out.

Superman Returns is something of a red-headed stepchild among DC's live-action movies, suffering in the shadow of the original Richard Donner Superman movies (which Superman Returns tried painfully to emulate) as well as Batman Begins. Now, it's been bumped aside by Henry Cavill's Superman, as Warner Bros makes a push to create its own cinematic universe—which is a shame, because in many ways, Superman Returns emulated the comics it's based on far more accurately. One such example involves Superman saving Lex's assistant (though he doesn't know that) by catching her car. Visually, this is almost a perfect recreation of an iconic comics scene.

The scene in question is actually the cover of Action Comics #1, the very issue in which Superman and many of his friends make their debut. For casual fans of the modern Man of Steel, lifting a car may seem like no big deal, but it's worth noting that when Superman first appeared, he wasn't quite as powerful as he'd become. For instance, he couldn't fly, just leap really high. At the time, the idea of someone casually lifting a heavy car above his head was something spectacular to behold, and Brendan Routh's Superman captured the wonder of the moment nicely decades later.

Regardless of the overall quality of Batman v. Superman, it was tough for superhero fans not to get excited about the final fight against Doomsday. For the first time, DC's heroic trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman appeared onscreen together. However, most of the fighting against the out-of-control alien monster was done by Superman and Wonder Woman. Batman mostly serves as a distraction for the creature, though he later provides a pivotal Kryptonite gas pellet to weaken Doomsday. During the conflict, there's a brief moment of Batman silhouetted against some lightning. To the casual filmgoer, that was just one shot out of a series of frenetic scenes. To comic fans, however, that was an homage to one of the absolute greatest comics ever made.

The image of Batman silhouetted against lightning is emblazoned across the cover of the Dark Knight Returns trade paperback. And while that lightning seemed like it was only part of the general ambiance in Batman v Superman, it is more symbolically tied to Batman in Dark Knight Returns, which opens with an older Bruce Wayne who's retired from the superhero life, but increasingly dismayed to see his city consumed by violent crime. During a storm that a TV weatherman describes as something "like the wrath of God," Batman decides to suit up once more, metaphorically becoming the purging storm he feels Gotham needs.

Despite the fact that their inevitable fight was literally spelled out in Batman v Superman's title, many were taken aback by the sheer brutality of the conflict between Batman and Superman. In large part because of his weaponized Kryptonite, Batman manages to win the fight, and he's about to straight-up murder Superman when the Man of Steel mentions that "Martha's" life is on the line. Batman relents, but not before he places his boot on Superman's neck. For casual moviegoers, this is just another grim scene during the battle...for comic book readers, however, it looks more than a little familiar.

As mentioned earlier, large parts of Batman v. Superman were adapted from the Dark Knight Returns comic. Some of these elements include the very idea of Batman and Superman engaging in a brutal fight, as well as Batman's bigger, badder suit. In the comic, like the movie, Batman defeats Superman and dramatically monologues while standing over his body. There are a couple of differences, though, the most obvious being that the comic book Batman puts his hand on Superman's throat, whereas the movie Batman puts his boot down. In the movie, Batman needs his hands free because he plans to murder Superman with a Kryptonite spear; in the comic, he had no intention of actually killing Superman, believing it was better that Superman always remembered he was beaten by a mortal man.

After Daredevil, Jessica Jones expanded Netflix's Marvel lineup. While many wondered if Marvel would copy their successful Daredevil formula, the company instead told a down-to-earth story about a superpowered woman trying to survive from day to day and escape the traumas of her past. One of the images that encapsulates this shows Jessica Jones lying to someone on a phone call as a way of gathering information. Rather than doing this in an office or other professional setting, she's shown sitting on the toilet, a perfect metaphor for how she has difficulty dividing her professional and personal lives. As it turns out, it was a nearly perfect recreation of a scene from the Alias comics in which the character premiered.

In the comics, Jones is also ignominiously posed on the toilet while dealing with work-related issues, but she isn't calling someone to get information; rather, she's thinking about a prospective client and whether her story checks out. True to form, she is also thinking about how much she doesn't want to ask anyone for help on this particular case, determined tackle it alone...presumably after pulling her pants up.