Not a bit shy,
Their desire
Writes its name
In the sky.
Batman and Superman, locking together, man to man:
(#1)
Madrid wall art by Ze Carrión
Image from my superhero-sex posting, which also has an erotic BatRobin slash image. Batman of the Gayverse is one randy superqueero, with a jones for any hunk in a cape. But Superman is his great antagonist, his great ally, and his great love.
The two heroes bring their names to their encounters. Superman, beyond human, beyond ordinary masculinity; Batman, the wielder of a heroic bat, also devotee of bats. From GDoS:
noun bat [metaphor based on bat ‘club’] (US/Aus) the penis [first cite 1930]
noun bat-boy (US gay) a hitchhiker who allows a homosexual driver to fellate him in exchange for a ride [1972 Rodgers, Queens’ Vernacular]
noun batman 1 (Aus.) a man with a large penis [1983] 2 (Aus. prison) an onanist [1990]
noun batsucker (Aus.) a fellator or fellatrix [2002]
Then the subtitle of this posting, SuperBat of Pink Steel Forever, which combines the slash name SuperBat with one film name for each of the heroes — Man of Steel and Batman Forever — and tops it off with pink steel, which GDoS offers as a harder, stiffer alternative to wood and woody as slang for the erect penis (first cite 1997).
Briefly on the films:
(#2)
Batman Forever is a 1995 American superhero film directed by Joel Schumacher and produced by Tim Burton, based on the DC Comics character Batman. It is the third installment of the initial Batman film series, with Val Kilmer replacing Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne / Batman. The film stars Chris O’Donnell, Nicole Kidman, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey. (Wikipedia link)
(#3)
Man of Steel is a 2013 superhero film featuring the DC Comics character Superman. It is a British-American venture … The film is directed by Zack Snyder, written by David S. Goyer, and stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, and Russell Crowe. Man of Steel is a reboot of the Superman film series that retells the character’s origin story. (Wikipedia link)
SuperBat imagery has been around for quite some time, and the genre is truly enormous — no surprise, given that it unites two figures who are separately prime objects of homoerotic desire. But in the last few years, as plans for a SuperBat movie were announced, and then when the movie itself appeared last year, SuperBat wall art flourished.
On the movie:
(#4)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a 2016 American superhero film featuring the DC Comics characters Batman and Superman. Directed by Zack Snyder and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, the film is the second installment in the DC Extended Universe following 2013’s Man of Steel.
… [The film] is the first live-action film to feature Batman and Superman together, as well as the first live-action cinematic portrayal of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg. In the film, criminal mastermind Lex Luthor manipulates Batman into a preemptive battle with Superman, whom Luthor is obsessed with defeating.
(The film has not been well received by critics. I haven’t seen it, but the official trailer comvinced me that I don’t want to.)
And now more SuperBat wall art:
Reported by frequent correspondent RPG, this pairing at the southern end of Canal Street, Manchester, England, in February (the artist has not been identified):
(#5)
The piece has a Pop Art feel to it, thanks in part to “superhero bubbles” (or “explosion bubbles”) with KISS in them. An assortment of these bubbles:
(#6)
And in New York and London, from a Huffington Post piece on 4/4/16, “Superman And Batman Are Kissing For Equality In New York City: ‘I wanted to create a dialogue about equality by taking the two most alpha male superheroes and placing them in this embrace.'” by Chiara Piotto:
(#7)
On street walls in London and New York, Superman grabs Batman’s sky blue mask, and they share a passionate kiss between their capes. The London-based contemporary urban pop artist behind the street art, Rich Simmons, tells HuffPost Italy that he has conceived of this composition because he wanted to spark a conversation about equality “by taking the two most alpha male superheroes and placing them in this embrace.”
Simmons, who has exhibited artwork in London, Geneva, Tampa, New York and Los Angeles, says that his artworks also intend to challenge the notion of heroism. “It is sometimes more heroic to simply stand up for your beliefs, stand up for equality,” he says.
“If you were in need of being saved from something, would it matter if the person who could be your hero was gay or not?” Simmons asks.
He exhibited his first “Superman Kissing Batman” work on canvas during his solo show at the Imitate Modern gallery in London in 2014. Over the past few weeks, in the run-up to the “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” film debut, he created the life-size paste-ups in Croydon and Soho in London and Lower Manhattan in New York City.
Then there are a great many SuperBat works that are either conventional paintings or digital art. For instance, this SuperBat kiss, one of a number of SuperBat compositions on the 9GAG site (a platform headquartered in Hong Kong):
(#8)
Frustratingly, neither the artist not even the person who posted the image to the site is identified. There is an artist’s signature, but I haven’t been able to match it to an artist. (If you can, please let me know.)
Then, on the DeviantArt site there are a number of homoerotic digital art pieces by Huang Dian, using the handle vitnaa, among them these two swoony SuperBat compositions:
(#9)
(#10)
From the static image to the moving image, in a live-action SuperBat music video. From a piece in Out magazine on 3/10/16, “Watch: Batman and Superman Share a Kiss” by Nicholas Richard Rees:
Coheed and Cambria have made superhero fans around the world infinitely happier. The progressive rock band’s latest music video, “Island,” features Time Square’s posse of costume characters. We won’t spoil the entire video, but Batman rescues a very cute Superman from a couple of unsavory animal characters before going in for an epic smooch.
You can link to the video from the Out piece.
