Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Superman | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, flash, nicolas cage, superman, world's finest

Nicolas Cage as Superman on the Cover of World's Finest #19 (Spoilers)

The Superman from the abandoned Tim Burton's Superman Lives movie that would have starred Nicolas Cage is on the cover to World's Finest.

Of all the iterations of Superman to celebrate on the cover of Batman/Superman: Worlds' Finest #19, as drawn by the series artist Dan Mora, no one could have predicted this one. Until a certain spoiler came out on Rolling Stone Magazine's website. Obviously, if you don't want any spoilers for… anything right now, this would be the time to stop. But hey, it's on Rolling Stone, what are you going to do?

Because, yes, yes, yes, the version of Superman from the abandoned Tim Burton's Superman Lives movie that would have starred comic book fan (he named himself after Luke Cage) Nicolas Cage as Superman and Clark Kent, does make an appearance in the new Flash movie. And given its poor performance at the box office, all sides of DC Comics and Warner Bros. are using whatever contacts they can to try and goose the numbers. And if that means spoiling a bit of the movie on an announced comic book cover at Rolling Stone Magazine, well that's just what they're going to do, damn it.

Toward the end of the film, Barry Allen/The Flash uses Speed Force to travel back in time, giving us a glimpse of numerous DC multiverses. In one, we're treated to Superman, played by Nicolas Cage, squaring off against a giant spider. This Cage-as-Superman sequence is a nod to a story filmmaker Kevin Smith has amused audiences with for years on the talk circuit. Here it goes: In 1996, the man behind Clerks wrote a fun Superman screenplay that caught the attention of producer Jon Peters (famously embodied by Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizza). Smith met with Peters at his palatial Los Angeles home, where the sketchy fella who co-produced Tim Burton's Batman told the up-and-coming moviemaker he wanted to make his Superman, with a few caveats: Superman could not fly, he could not wear the suit, and the third act had to have him battling a giant spider.

As Kevin Smith said "I have spent the better part of 30 years of my career referencing the movies. And now I've lived long enough where the movies are starting to reference me back… you know, in a weird way, even though I've been making films for 30 years, and I got my own career, I feel like, 'Oh, I finally made it.'"

Other covers in the Batman/Superman: World's Finest series will include Jerry Seinfeld, Paul McCartney, and Jack White. But might other Flash cameos make the grade?

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