Darkseid Pulling Superman's Cape

About

Darkseid Pulling Superman's Cape is a image macro meme based on a memorable moment from the 2010 animated DC Comics superhero film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. In the scene, Superman attempts to walk by the villain Darkseid, who grabs his cape to stop him from escaping. Online, the image expresses one's desire for a more thorough explanation of another's comment or opinion.

Origin

On September 28th, 2010, Warner Premiere and DC Entertainment released the film on home video.^[1] In the film, the characters Superman and Darkseid (voiced by Tim Daly and Andre Braugher) fight. As Superman loses the battle, he notices his cousin Kara lying motionless in a crater and begins to approach her body, when Darkseid grabs his cape and prevents him from doing so (shown below).

Within a few years of the film's premiere, memers began producing content based on the scene. For example, on March 31st, 2013, DeviantArt ^[2] user Tsotne-Senpai posted a GIF of the moment. The post received more than 3,000 views in less than nine years (shown below).

Spread

The following year, an image edit of the scene appeared on Twitter. On June 8th, 2014, Twitter^[3] user @NBAMemeTeam posted a version of the image to reflect opinions about the San Antonio Spurs. They captioned the image "Don't pull on Superman's cape" (shown below, left).

Seven years later, on January 25th, 2021, Redditor posted an object labeling version of the image in the /r/memes,^[4] which labeled Darkseid "my computer," Superman "me going to dinner" and the cape "my headset." The post received more than 58,000 points (97% upvoted) and 240 comments in less than two months (shown below, center).

Roughly two months after the Reddit post, on March 5th, Twitter^[5] user @darynelweekly posted the image as a reaction image to the caption, "Nobody: / The door handle when you’re having a bad day." The post received more than 67,000 likes and 17,000 retweets in less than one month (shown below, right).

On March 17th, StayHipp^[6] published an article about the meme.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

Not available.

External References