That son of a bitch brought the war to Honey Nut Cheerios…

It’s somewhat odd that a film that began its marketing campaign with the line “Tell me, do you bleed? You will!” is glomming onto a cereal largely aimed at the younger set, but whatever. Batman v Superman and Honey Nut Cheerios — a match made in heaven! Even better than when the bee helped Christopher Columbus discover America!

I saw the above box as I was passing through the cereal aisle the other day, zipping past the high fructose sugar bombs towards the dreadful plain whole oats that make up most of my morning meals. (As an aside, it still boggles my mind that Cookie Crisp, a breakfast cereal composed entirely of small cookies, chocolate chip cookies no less, ever made its way to market. This was one hell of a victory for the American Federated Children’s Union, Local 151. How that ever got into the parent-child collective bargaining agreement, I’ll never know.) And lo and behold, there it was: a Batman and Superman tie-in, with a free comic! If there’s anything that can shake me out of my non-posting doldrums and dust off the scanner, it’s this movie. I mean, it’s wish-fulfillment of the highest order — Avengers who? How long have we been waiting for a live action pairing of these two guys? Only about 80 years, right?

There are four thin collect-em-all comics, each about digest size and delving briefly into the Dawn of Justice-verse. I’ve purchased two boxes, and have the two comics and the post-sugar bloating to show for it. Of the most interest is #4, entitled “Lights Out”:

Written by Joshua Williamson with art by Eduardo Pansica and Art Thibert, it has kids in an orphanage engaging in that age-old late night argument about who’s better, the Caped Crusader or the Man of Steel. Both sides make the usual salient points, and of course before you know it a red sheet is tied to one kid’s neck and the other makes a makeshift cape and cowl out of a black one, and we’re about to have a showdown, much like the upcoming movie brawl. It’s then that one of the poor ragamuffins who’s been rattled awake by all this nonsense comes in and gives meta voice to the great criticism underlying the whole cinematic endeavor:

From the mouths of babes, you know? Duh.

There are some puzzles at the back of each comic, because nothing says a-movie-that’s-going-to-have-a-hard-R-director’s-cut quite like a word search:

And if that’s not enough to sate your hunger for puzzles, the back of the box has its own “game” — it’s at least something to keep your bleary eyes occupied as you slurp your morning coffee:

There you have it: the World’s Finest pairing of the DC Expanded Universe and General Mills. As you can see from the back of the box, you can also get your sugar/comic fix with Cocoa Puffs, Golden Grahams, Lucky Charms and Trix — so as it turns out, Honey Nut Cheerios may be the most healthy option. Anyway, check back in for my review of the movie later this week if you’re so inclined. Like I said, if this flick can’t shock paddle me into posting again, I don’t know what will.