Last night's MTV Movie Awards, which were shot Saturday on the Sony lot, were a series of hits (the streamlined set and projections, Jessica Alba as host) and misses (Andy Samberg's painfully unfunny Ron Google opening sketch, anything involving AFI), though not even Jim Carrey surrounded by 1000 angels in sunglasses could have outshone Christian Bale's acceptance speech for Best Hero. As the cast of Superman Returns stood behind him (video above), the swaggering, macho Bale proudly returned some bat-balls to his superhero's legacy. He failed, however, to resist the impulse to deliver yet another blow to Superman's ever faltering potency problem (it's around the 3:30 mark):

I'd like to thank Chris Nolan, who directed Batman Begins. I want to thank him for getting rid of those bloody nipples, and for giving the Dark Knight back some dignity...

And obviously to Bob Kane, who created this most bad-ass of Superheroes. I'm sorry, Superman, but Batman, he's the bad-ass.

Routh was, not surprisingly, entirely too good natured about the call-out, shrugging his shoulders and smiling ineffectually as the audience cheered Bale on. Of course, the more he thought about it, the more Bale's declaration of superhero bad-ass dominance got his goat, and Routh spent the rest of the broadcast stewing in his seat and plotting his revenge. Yes, a strongly worded letter expressing his deep disappointment in his DC hero counterpart was exactly what the doctor ordered to reestablish Superman's all-powerful, not-at-all-gay place atop the cinematic superhero mountain.