So there's this interesting article I read a couple of days ago on CBR about the Burton/Schumacher Batman films and about how Gotham evolved from the gothic noir-ish feel of the Burton films to the neon-lit hellscape of the Schumacher films. And they came up with this fascinating theory that in-universe Gotham was inspired by Metropolis and its own evolution due to the presence of Superman and that the neon-lit Gotham is basically Gotham trying to emulate the more advanced and optimistic Metropolis (but not quiet reaching those lofty heights).
https://www.cbr.com/batman-theory-su...ham-noir-neon/
Now obviously I don't think Schumacher thought of it quiet that way (though one can argue that the transition between the Burton and Schumacher films mirrored the transition between the relatively noir-ish Golden Age and the campier Silver Age that occurred in the comics). But it did get me thinking - both the Schumacher films contain references to Superman (Forever to Metropolis, and B&R to the Man of Steel himself). While obviously there weren't really plans for a 'shared universe' back then, it does beg the question - who is the Superman of the Schumacher Bat-verse?
As in, is it based on an existing version of the character? Is he supposed to be one of the live-action versions of Superman we'd already seen? What would be the scope of his powers, his adventures, and most importantly, his influence on the larger world? How similar or different was his world tonally from Batman's? Had he met Schumacher's Batman?
Well, about the only thing we do know about him is that ''he works alone''
I suppose, from a purely chronological standpoint, it could be Dean Cain's Superman from Lois & Clark, since he's the Superman of the 90's. I haven't really watched that show, but I know enough to know that Superman's adventures were fairly small-scale on that show...so it makes sense that Batman would know of him but he wasn't powerful or influential enough to affect events in Gotham much.
It could be the Christopher Reeve Superman too I guess. He tends to get paired with the Burton Batman as the first major big-screen iterations of those characters, and the Schumacher Batman was, at least back then, meant to be the same as the Burton Batman. Though that would mean that the Schumacher films are possibly set in a world where Superman has been around nearly 20 years! Of course, there's nothing to contradict that.
Maybe its a very young Brandon Routh Superman (who's also kinda the Reeve Superman on a floating timescale). Though I do feel that if Routh's Superman co-existed with any Batman on the big-screen, it was more likely to be Christian Bale's (in fact, they almost certainly would have had them team up on the big-screen had Nolan not been adamant about keeping his Batman separate).
Or it could be Nicholas Cage, the would-be Superman of the 90's...
Fun to think about!