The Iron Giant Becomes Batman in DC Crossover Art

[Animous]

The Iron Giant has been turned into Batman in a new piece of DC crossover artwork. The Iron Giant, released in 1999, was a box office flop that has since won over the hearts of children and adults alike and become a classic in its own right. Directed by Brad Bird, who would go on to direct The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the animated film follows Hogarth, a young boy who discovers and befriends a peaceful gigantic alien robot who crash has crash-landed on Earth in the 1950s. The Iron Giant (voiced by Vin Diesel) must then overcome his own potentially dangerous programming in order to save the life of Hogarth and prevent the destruction of an American town by a tenacious government agent and the paranoid American military.

While the Iron Giant himself does not officially exist in the DC Universe, it was confirmed in Shazam! #15 that the movie The Iron Giant does. In the comic book, Shazam is about to face off against an evil robot determined to destroy Japan and references the 1999 film when he asks whether the robot is friendly like the Iron Giant. This revelation is notable because the similarities between the Iron Giant and various DC superheroes have not been lost on fans, most notably the parallels between the Iron Giant and Zack Snyder's version of Superman, both heroes who have sacrificed themselves to save cities that fear them.

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In a recent Instagram post, Bosslogic, a popular digital artist well known for his unique visual takes on items in pop culture, shared an image depicting the Iron Giant as Batman. The poster-like image, featuring a half-Batman-half-Iron-Giant figure, is clearly taking inspiration from Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice and the mech suit that Ben Affleck's Batman wears when facing off against Henry Cavill's Superman. Bosslogic takes elements from both source materials and marries them together to form "The Iron Bat."

The silhouette of The Iron Bat, particularly the bat ears, evokes the Snyder mech suit while details such as the eyes, which have remained the same shade of blue as seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, have been changed to be softer and more round, clearly reminiscent of the eyes of the Iron Giant. Even the texture and construction of the suit, particularly the rounded metal rivetting along the arms, have been changed to suit the unique aesthetic of the Iron Giant.

It's clear that, although Brad Bird would not return for a sequel to The Iron Giant, people are still very much taken by the story and have a certain fondness for the character. The Iron Giant even appeared briefly in 2018's Ready Player One, nearly twenty years after the original film's release. The Iron Giant and Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice do share several similarities, particularly in regards to their themes. In The Iron Giant, the antagonistic government agent is convinced of the Giant's destructive potential and therefore wants to destroy him at all costs. Similarly, in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Batman sets himself on a mission to destroy Superman because he fears Superman's unchecked god-like power. While it's unclear if Bosslogic has any awareness of or interest in these thematic relationships or if the artwork is merely coincidental, it's apparent that the kindly robot from the 1999 film has remained relevant even today and continues to speak to the ways in which humans wrestle with phenomena they don't understand.

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