This is not as cute as Spider-Man taking a nap with some pandas. A doctored Justice League poster portraying DC’s heroes stomping, skewering, and decapitating some of the competition has been making the rounds in China, including being used as an actual theater poster and elevator ad.
Justice League fans on Chinese social media platform Weibo recently pointed out a poster showing Superman and his Super Friends maiming and killing some of Marvel’s more famous characters. These include Superman squishing Ant-Man like a little doll, Batman holding the disembodied head of Thor, the Flash stomping on Captain America’s head, Wonder Woman stabbing a screaming Wolverine, and Aquaman hoisting a skewered Deadpool over his head (presumably while cracking jokes, cause that wouldn’t kill him). Only one missing out on the action is Cyborg, poor guy.
According to a post on Reddit, the poster has been used at Chinese movie theaters—we’ve found one photo of a theater so far, as well as a video showing an elevator ad, so it’s hard to say how widespread its use has been. It was also on the ticketing app for Wanda Cinema, a Chinese movie theater chain, and iQiyi, a video hosting site that’s doing promos for the film. iQiyi reportedly removed the poster after user feedback (it’s not currently on the site), but there’s no word whether the theaters have done the same. We’ve reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.
This isn’t the first time fake Chinese movie posters have caused a stir. In September, a series of Spider-Man: Homecoming posters (showing Peter Parker chilling near the Great Wall and riding a horse, among other things) were circulated online, which io9 later confirmed were a hoax. They were cute, though. This one? Not so much.
[Reddit]