The One Time My Favorite Running Back Was In The Batman v. Superman Movie

Of the 992 superhero films that have already been greenlit over the course of the next 75 years, some of which YOUR children might not live to see, there is one generating perhaps more buzz than most. I’m talking, of course, about next year’s “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” The reasons are obvious. It’s not just Batman. It’s not just Superman. It’s Batman AND Superman. Except it’s NOT just Batman AND Superman. It’s Batman and Superman AND Wonder Woman. Except it’s NOT just Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman. It’s Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman AND Aquaman. Ye gods!!!

To which I say……so honkin’ what? Go to the “Batman and Superman” IMDB page. It’s right here. Scroll down that list. Go past your superheroes and Jesse Eisenberg and Diane Lane and Holly Hunter and future Oscar winner Amy Adams. Go past Laurence Fishburne and Scoot McNairy. Go past Demi Kazanis and Marko Caka. What name do you see? You see this name: Ahman Green.

Me and Ahman, well, we go way back. All the way back to the mid-90’s when my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers were jeweled kings of the college football mountain and Ahman Green was their conquering hero in the backfield, the Earnest Shackleton of running backs. Social media sports fanatics like to make fun of the Peyton Manning Face but do you know the first documented instance of The Peyton Manning Face? That’s the 1998 Orange Bowl when Ahman Green was ripping up chunks of yardage on every play, killing clock, padding stats, swelling the score all on the strength of his glass-stained cleats while Peyton Manning stood on the sideline, helmet in hand, making The Peyton Manning Face, powerless to stem the monumental Ahman tide. A Nebraska native I befriended last year told me she went to that Orange Bowl. “You mean,” I said as my eyes leapt from their sockets, “the Ahman Green Game?” That’s what I call it. No football player who has ever lived has played better.

Per IMDB, Mr. Green will be portraying a character in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” named “Thug #2”. If we can, let’s set aside the uncomfortable connotations such a make-believe moniker might elicit and instead focus on the fact such a title would seem to indicate he’s set to portray a bad guy, one of those people who glowers in the background behind the film’s chief heavy. And if that’s what he is, that means he’s expendable, because that’s their entire point – to show up so the superhero or heroes can dispatch of him. And for Ahman Green to show up just to be dispatched is ab-freaking-surd.

Now I admit there are few things in movie discourse that exasperate me more or more quickly than the mention of “plot holes.” Movies are so much more wonderful and interesting than a few measly “plot holes.” Spare me your mildewed protest that you could “drive a truck” through all those “plot holes”. But, having said that, if ever a feature film were, in fact, to feature a “plot hole”, well, rest assured, none would be bigger than some DC Comics lily-livers thinking they could go toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye, human-battering-ram for human-battering-ram with Ahman Green. Are you kidding me?! Get that stanky wet junk mail outta here. Superman’s stronger than a locomotive? Puh-leeze.

Superman’s never tried to tackle Ahman Green in the open field and Batman's Batsuit would crumble like a poorly made blueberry muffin at the first jab from an Ahman Green stiff arm. And besides, have either of those poseurs ever been on the cover of Sports Illustrated?