For general audiences, superhero movies are just another way to experience some blockbuster fun for a few hours, but for comic book fans, the experience is more than just watching the story unfold. it's also an exercise in spotting as many Easter Eggs as possible, ranging from callbacks to the comics or small nods to past projects that the cast or crew have worked on before. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has been out for six months and on home media for a little over two months, so most of its Easter Eggs have already been found. However, one eagle-eyed fan just noticed a subtle tribute to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster's home.
Twitter user Critical Mas was re-watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and during the big fight between the eponymous heroes, he noticed the peculiar way a window was broken and questioned if it was deliberately supposed to look like the outline of Ontario, Canada, where Joe Shuster was born. It feels like a stretch at first, but if you compare those two images above, that window pattern definitely looks way too much like the province to be a coincidence.
This Easter Egg theory soon started making its way around social media, and eventually Clay Enos, the photographer who snapped many of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice's publicity pictures, saw it. Here's what he had to say:
That's right, Enos has direct confirmation from director Zack Snyder that this is indeed a subtle Easter Egg to Shuster, the artist who co-created Superman with writer Jerry Siegel in the 1930s. Thanks to those two, not only was the superhero story genre popularized, but pop culture gained one of its most famous figures in the Man of Steel. There have been other times where Shuster and Siegel have been honored in other Superman stories and projects, but this is arguably the most discreet Easter Egg for them yet. It can definitely be classified under the blink-and-you'll-miss-it category.
If Critical Mas hadn't pointed out the broken glass in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, who knows how much longer we would have gone until someone else drew the same conclusion? Unfortunately, since it was discovered, it does not earn the award for "Most Secretive Easter Egg in a Superhero Movie." That honor still belongs to Guardians of the Galaxy, since director James Gunn has said fans still haven't discovered one particular nugget of geeky goodness he hid in that movie.
Superman will return to the DCEU when Justice League hits theaters on November 17, 2017. Since Zack Snyder is also helming this movie, maybe he'll include another subtle Easter Egg to Joe Shuster and/or Jerry Siegel. Fingers crossed!
