What Dreams May Come
The next pair of dream sequences, reinforce this internal struggle between Bruce and Batman, masochist and sadist. One features Bruce paying a visit to his parents graves, specifically his mother’s with fresh flowers. Only to be overrun by surrealist blood seeping from her tomb before being consumed by a large bat like creature. In the final and most elaborate dream sequence, known as the Knightmare, Bruce phantasmically imagines a world conquered by Superman resulting in a post-apocalyptic scenario. In this scenario, Bruce has given fully into the Batman persona, wearing the cowl over his army fatigues and most strikingly using guns. He cast himself in an insurgent role trying to obtain kryptonite the object that can weaken and kill the Superman. Only to have everything, like the Battle of Metropolis, ripped from him and his eventually downfall in the face of the new masculine other.
With himself fully consumed internally by the Batman and some extra prodding and manipulation by Lex Luthor, Batman is finally left to go on his final, suicidal, masochistic, mission: kill Superman and regain coherence and the phallus.