15 Things I Noticed In The 'Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice' Trailer

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.

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.

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"

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."

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.

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?

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.

Maybe by "family" the note means Bruce Wayne's adopted son Dick Grayson, who became his sidekick Robin. (Or, perhaps more likely is Jason Todd, the second Robin, who in comics was murdered by the Joker.) At one point in the trailer we see Bruce Wayne look up at a suit in a case which has graffiti all over it.

At first glance most people think this is a Bat suit, but it appears to be Robin's suit.

Here is a close-up with a comparison to the R Robin logo on Robin's suit from the comic books:

Is this Robin's suit? Is Robin dead? What does this mean? Did Bruce Wayne walk away from being Batman after Robin's death? This could partially explain the reason why Wayne Manor is in shambles? But this also bring us to another question...

And an addition from a reader:

@slashfilm If you look closely it looks like there are two bullet holes in the Robin Costume. One by the R and one near his left shoulder.

— Matt (@Mattman_2018) July 14, 2015

First se saw the weird ransom note and now this suit in Batman's armory, both defaced with the same kind of writing. The writing on the suit reads "HA HA HA Joke's On You BATMAN".

At first glance this seems like something the Joker would do. We know that Jared Leto plays the Joker in David Ayer's Suicide Squad.

The official trailer for Suicide Squad is released and we see a quick clip of Batman hanging on the roof of a car in that footage:

Could Leto also appear in Batman V Superman? Or could the writing on the suit in Batman's armory be an old artifact from a time long ago? The shot does come accompanied by Bruce asking Alfred, "20 years in Gotham and how many good guys are left?"

We see a shot of Gal Gadot as Diana Prince getting into what looks to be an expensive car outside a Wayne party:

This is followed by some shots of Gal Gadot in action as Wonder Woman:

Notice what appears to be a small crashed alien ship in the background.

How does Wonder Woman fit into this story? Footage shown at the DC panel, before this trailer played, had Wonder Woman fighting what appeared to be WWII-era enemies. How long has she been around? If the answer is "decades," perhaps she and Bruce have a long history together.

Here is our first real look at the Batcave. A platform for the Batmobile hangs in the center. We see a waterfall on the left, and some rocks on the right. In the background you can see a suit in a glass case.

At another point in the trailer, we see officers arrive to an old Church looking building. They find a batarang stuck in the wall, and a man chained to a wall. We assume the main is a criminal caught by the Batman.

And then we see a close-up on the man shoulder, which seems to be branded with a Batman symbol. Has Batman become a little sadistic?

At another point in the trailer we see Jeremy Irons as Bruce Wayne's butler and confident Alfred say "Thats how it starts, the fever, the rage, that turns good men cruel."

We hear Superman or Clark Kent say "This Bat vigilante is a one-man reign of terror" and cut to Laurence Fishburne as Daily Planet editor Perry White lecturing his writer Clark Kent: "You don't get to decide what the right thing is. Who cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman!" It is clear here that Clark Kent doesn't like Batman.

Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tells Superman that his symbol means something, "its all some people have, its all that gives them hope." And we see Superman come to save some people who are on top of their house during an extreme flood/hurricane.

Superman's adoptive Earth mother Martha Kent (played again by Diane Lane) tells him that "people hate what they don't understand" and encourages to still "be their hero Clark, be their Angel, be their monument, be anything they need you to be." Though her encouragement isn't so deep, as she goes on to say "Or be none of it. You don't owe this world a thing. You never did."

We see some shots of Superman saving people. First at a building fire.

Saving a failed missile launch:

And then him being embraced by strangers at a Day of the Dead celebration.

But the biggest mystery is perhaps a group of soldiers we see in the following shot:

Notice the patches on their shoulder, here is a zoomed in close-up:

Why are these men wearing Superman's symbol on their arm? In the shot they are kneeling before Kal-El. And Superman doesn't appear to be angry, he walks through their worship without looking down.

We see this militia killing people with guns at a later point in the trailer:

And attacking Batman sometime after he emerges from an underground bunker in a desert region.

Lex Luthor's final line in the trailer is "the red capes are coming" — is that a reference to these footsoldiers?

At one point in the new trailer, we see Superman kneeling before Lex Luthor. He looks up at Luthor in disgust. Why is he kneeling before the billionaire? What is going on here?

It might be because Lex Luthor has some Kryptonite.

In the new trailer we see a cargo being escorted through a military area. (Led, we might note, by the same woman who admits Holly Hunter's character into Lex's home.) The next shot is of a bodybag being unzipped to reveal Michael Shannon as General Zod. Superman killed his fellow Kryptonian in Man of Steel, but what is going on with Zod's body now? What does it have to do with the plot of this new film?

We see that Lex Luthor's company LexCorp has suffered an attack, but we're not sure who is responsible: Batman, Superman, or someone else?

Here is a collection of shots from the trailer that I can't quite put together. First up is a young boy, probably young Bruce Wayne, swimming underwater towards... something? What did he find? Why is this shot in the trailer? What does it suggest? We know Aquaman is a factor, and water certainly suggests him, but this shot doesn't seem to have much info.

The next shot is of a bunch of people riding horses in what appears to be the West, definitely not Metropolis or Gotham City. What does this shot mean? It definitely seems to suggest a more epic scope in the story.

A plane, space craft or Batjet seems to be crashing in an area outside of a major city (either Gotham or Metropolis):

And here are some more images from the Comic Con Batman v Superman trailer that didn't fit into any new observations. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below!