Eighteen months after the destructive battle in Metropolis (Man of Steel), Superman has become a controversial figure. Billionaire Bruce Wayne, who has covertly operated in Gotham City as vigilante Batman for nearly two decades, blames Superman for the mass casualties that resulted from his fight with General Zod. Superman, in his public identity as Daily Planet journalist Clark Kent, sees Batman as dangerous and seeks to expose him. Bruce: [narrating] There was a time above... a time before... there were perfect things... diamond absolutes. But things fall... things on earth. And what falls... is fallen. Alfred: Master Wayne. Bruce! Bruce, it's all right. Bruce, please. Thomas Wayne: Martha... Bruce: [narrating] In the dream they took me to the light. A beautiful lie.
Bruce: Jack. Jack: Bruce. Bruce: Jack, listen to me. I want you to get everyone out of the building. Right now. You understand? Jack: Let's go. Come on, start moving now, people. Let's go. The boss wants us out of the building. So, let's make it happen. Bruce: Jack. Jack! Cellphone Recording: We're sorry. All circuits are busy now. Will you please try you call again later. Jack: Heaven God. Creator of heaven and earth. Have mercy on my soul. Bruce: JACK!!! Teacher: [to kids] Everybody, buddy hands. Show me! Come on, guys. Hold on tight. Come on. Bruce: Go.
Wallace: Mr. Wayne! Mr. Wayne! I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs.
Bruce: We need help over here!
Wallace: [grabs Bruce] Help me. I can't feel my legs.
Bruce: You're going to be okay, you hear me? Wallace. What do they call you, Wally? Huh?
Wallace: You're the boss, boss.
Man: Alright. Easy, easy. Come on.
Wallace: Oh my god. I can't feel my legs. I can't... I can't feel my legs.
Bruce: [comforting a crying girl] It's okay. You're going to be okay. You're okay, alright. Huh. Okay, you know what? We're going to find your mom. Where is she?
The girl (Sage) points at a destroyed skyscraper, Bruce hugs her.
18 MONTHS LATER . . . . . Somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Island divers recover a meteor and bring it to an island scientist. The scientist cracks it open with a hammer, revealing Kryptonite.
Photographer Jimmy Olson waits on the arrival of Lois Lane who has arranged an interview with rebel General Amajagh.
All that wind is bad luck. Blood in the sky. Oh, there she is!
Jimmy: Miss Lane. Miss Lane, Jimmy Olsen, photographer, obviously.
Lois: Where's Heron?
Jimmy: Uh, trouble at the border. So, how'd you land it? This is, like, pioneer stuff. Amajagh's never given an interview.
Lois: You know what Heron always says when we're on assignment together? Not a god-damn thing. I like Heron. . . . . Let's go.
Rebel Driver: Electronics. Phones. Cameras.
Lois: Your fixer said that the general approved photos.
Lois: Are you a terrorist, General?
General Amajagh: They did not tell me the interview was with a lady.
Lois: I'm not a lady, I'm a journalist.
Amajagh: What I am, is a man with nothing, except a love of my people.
Lois: Who's paying for these security contractors, General?
Amajagh: Who pays for the drones that pass over our heads at night? One question begs another. Yes?
Jimmy: It's just a camera.
Lois: The United States has declared its neutrality in your country's civil war both in policy and in principle.
Jimmy: Uh, don't open...You just exposed...
Amajagh: These pious American fictions ...spoken like truth.
Jimmy: Okay, that's my film.
Amajagh: Men with power obey neither policy nor principle, Miss Lane. No one is different. No one is neutral.
Anatoli Knyazev: CIA.
General Security Chief: They're tracking us.
Amajagh: You're CIA.
Lois: What... No!
Amajagh: You brought him here!
Lois: No, he's a photographer. No!
Jimmy: Not her. We just used her credentials as cover. She doesn't know anything. It's okay, Lois. There are solutions, General. I am authorized to propose an arrangement.
With his pistol aimed at the photographer, the General executes Jimmy.
CIA Member: Talon's down, sir.
CIA Supervisor: Python, we have lost our asset on the ground. Repeat, we have lost our asset on the ground.
Python Team Leader: There's still a civilian in the compound. We'll extract her.
CIA Supervisor: Negative. RPA to engage. Stand down and get black.
Python Team Leader: There'll be friendlies in the black zone, so call off the god-damn drone.
CIA Supervisor: Stand down is an order. Python?
Python Team Leader: Let's move!
Lois: I didn't know.
Amajagh: Ignorance is not the same as innocence. Miss Lane.
Mercenaries begin executing the General's soldiers.
Amajagh: [to Lois] Get up! Stand up!
Anatoli: Quickly, he's coming.
CIA Member: Inbound two mikes.
Drone Remote Pilot: Passing Python now.
Anatoli: Move out!
Drone Remote Pilot: Target locked.
CIA Agent: You are clear to engage.
Drone Remote Pilot: Armed hot and in range. Three . . . two . . . one.
Superman intercepts the drone, destroying it.
Drone Remote Pilot: Link's been hit.
CIA Supervisor: By what?
Superman appears before the General.
Amajagh: Take one step, you will see the inside of her head.
Using super-speed, Superman takes out the General. The Python team arrive and see the slaughtered soldiers.
Kahina Ziri: The women in the village heard a noise. Like the sky cracked open. He came down, then came fire. Even worse came after. The government attacked. No mercy in the villages. My parents tried to run...
Finch: The world has been so caught up with what Superman can do that no one has asked what he should do. Let the record show that this committee holds him responsible...
Kahina: He'll never answer to you. He answers to no one. Not even, I think, to God.
Two police officers are in their squad car, watching a football game.
Announcer Dave: 58 to nothing. Metropolis, again, blowing out Gotham City.
Announcer Tom: Really, only the diehards are left in the stands.
Dispatcher: Reports of screaming coming from vacant home at 1939 Harbor Way.
Announcer Dave: Tom, it's been great working with you. I want to thank our producer and director. Now wait a second.
Dispatcher: Charlie 27, respond.
Officer Mazzuccheli: Just take a knee.
Announcer Tom: . . . . as if Clarkson is gonna throw it deep here. Going into the end zone. Don't tell me, Dave.
Announcer Dave: This is unnecessary.
Announcer Tom: Zeke Baker is open. Baker with a touchdown catch!
Announcer Dave: I can't believe I just watched that.
Dispatcher: Charlie 27, do you copy?
Mazzuccheli: 10-4. We're on it.
Announcer Tom: And now a fight breaks out. Gotham City. You know how they are about their football team. Things could get ugly in the city tonight.
Mazzuccheli: Go.
In a basement, they find women behind bars, chattering in foreign language.
Hostage Girl: It saved us. A devil.
Officer Rucka: It's okay. We're gonna help.
Hostage Girl: It saved us.
Rucka: Okay, we're going to get you out of here. Okay?
Rucka opens the barred door, but the Hostage Girl closes it.
Hostage Girl: It's still here.
Rucka: I don't understand.
The cops hear screaming upstairs and head up.
Cesar Santos: AHHHHH! Please don't. Please don't. Please. I don't know who he is. AHHHHH!
Rucka enters a room and sees Cesar tied up and tortured.
Rucka: Oh, fuck.
He sees Batman up on the ceiling and begins firing, almost shooting his partner.
Mazzuccheli: Christ!
Rucka: I saw him. I never saw him before. I didn't know...
Mazzuccheli: You almost took my face off. How about you don't shoot the good guys, huh? . . . Oh. Jesus Christ. He branded him.
Clark: Hey.
Lois: Hey.
Clark: I was going to cook. Surprise you.
Lois: They held hearings about what happened. They're saying that...
Clark: I don't care. I don't care what they're saying. The woman I love could have been blown up or shot. Think of what could have happened.
Lois: Well, think about what did happen.
Clark: I didn't kill those men if that's what they think. If that's what you're saying.
Lois: No, I'm saying I want to understand what happened. I'm saying, thank you for saving my life. I'm saying there's a cost. . . . . I just don't know if it's possible.
Clark: Don't know what's possible?
Lois: For you to love me and be you. . . . . Clark, you're going to flood the apartment.
Clark: Mmm-hmm.
Bruce: Still working? You're getting slow in your old age, Alfred.
Alfred: It comes to us all, Master Wayne. Even you've got too old to die young, though not for lack of trying. [testing a microphone] Funnel, fairy, bubblebath.
Funnel, fairy, bubblebath. There's nothing wrong with the microphone. It's this new layer of armor. I'll just have to rewire. So... last night was productive?
Bruce: Nope. He's too low level, he knew nothing. This is a man who knows things. Anatoli Knyazev. He's Russian. Contracts all over the globe but he's base out of the port of Gotham. Weapons and human trafficking.
Alfred: So, the "White Portuguese" is a Russian, that's the theory.
Bruce: No. The theory is that the Russian will lead me to the man himself.
Alfred: If he is indeed a "him." You don't know if he exists. He could be a phantasm.
Bruce: One that wants to bring a dirty bomb into Gotham?
Alfred: Ah, high state front. . . . New rules.
Bruce: We're criminals, Alfred. We've always been criminals. Nothing's changed.
Alfred: Oh, yes it has, sir. Everything's changed. Men fall from the sky, the gods hurl thunderbolts, innocents die. That's how it starts, sir. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel.
Senator June Finch and Senator Barrows visit Lex Luthor at LexCorp.
Lex: Ooh. Ah. Ahoy, ahoy! I did not know you were here.
Barrows: Man on the marquee.
Lex: Stop, don't believe it. My father named the company after himself. He was the Lex in front of the Corp. Hi, how are you doing?
Finch: Oh, really great.
Lex: Really great? Good. Good. Follow me. No, my Dad started saying that he named the company, after his kid. Rich old ladies. They thought it was very cute, you know? You know, Dad was born in east Germany. He grew up eating stale crackers. And every other Saturday, he had to march in a parade and waved flowers at tyrants. So, I think it was providence that his son, me, would end up with this. One of my rebuild Metropolis crews found it. A little souvenir from the Kryptonian World Engine.
Finch: What's a rock have to do with Homeland Security.
Lex: Homeland Security? Mmm. No, no, no... ma'am. Planetary Security.
LexCorp Scientist: The fragment is of a radio active Xeno mineral. We suspected it might have bio interactions, so, we took the sample to AMRIID. Where they keep the remains of the Kryptonian decedent. And, when we exposed general Zod to the mineral, this happened. Profound biodegradation, decaying Kryptonian cells.
Lex: We concluded the mineral could be weaponized, if a large enough sample was found. And then, among the fishes, a whale! Lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean Emerald City. Beautiful. Now, Rocky is radio active, but, what he needs from you is an import license.
Finch: And why would we want to weaponize this material?
Lex: As a deterrent. A silver bullet to keep in reserve to use against the Kryptonians. So, the day doesn't come, Madame. When your children are waving daisies at a reviewing stand.
Barrows: Last I looked, the only one of those flying around up here was Superman.
Lex: Ha. Yes, Superman. Yeah, but, there are there are more of them.
Finch: The meta-human thesis.
Lex: Yes, the meta-human thesis. More likely than not. These exceptional beings live among us. The bases of our myths. Gods among men upon our little blue planet here. You don't have to use the silver bullet, but, if you forge one... Well, then... We don't have to depend upon the kindness of monsters.
As the senators depart, Barrows hangs back to talk with Lex privately.
Barrows: There are ways we can help each other.
Lex: Ah. Could you step into my office here? Yes!
Barrows: What's your wish list?
Lex: Uh. Access to the wreck of the crashed Kryptonian ship.
Barrows: Done.
A scene implying a later time of Lex arriving at the Kryptonian ship.
Lex: The complete remains of the dead alien for testing.
Barrows: You want Zod's body?
Lex: Okay.
A scene implying a later time of Lex slicing skin from Zod's finger.
Lex: It's cherry.
While Clark cooks breakfast, he watches Kahina being interviewed on TV.
Kahina: Because the time has come for the world to hear the other side of story. They say that Superman is a hero, but who's hero?
Reporter: Are you saying if Superman were here right now, what would you want to say to him.
Kahina: That my family too, had dreams. To look him in the eye and ask him how he decides which lives count, and which ones do not.
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