Say what you like about Zack Snyder, but there’s no denying the guy left a trail of bodies behind him in the DCEU. Over Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League, he either killed or confirmed the deaths of a bunch of beloved DC characters.
These include Emil Hamilton (killed destroying the Kryptonian world engine), Jimmy Olsen (shot after being exposed as a CIA agent), Dick Grayson (the defaced Robin suit was his), and Mercy Graves (blown up by Lex Luthor in his attack on the Capitol).
Some fans on r/DC_Cinematic are calling foul on Snyder’s homicidal tendencies, saying that doing this wasted a lot of good actors and squandered storytelling possibilities. Tao Okamoto’s Mercy Graves is singled out, with the OP arguing that the DCEU could have made a lot more of her relationship with Wonder Woman and the Amazons.
The counterpoint is that Snyder’s tactic was slightly different from the MCU. His DCEU project was envisaged as a five-film story that would have had a definitive ending after the third Justice League movie. As such, he knew in advance that these characters wouldn’t fit with where he was going, and that showing people can die and stay dead raises the storytelling stakes.
Plus, many of these deaths add character. Ben Affleck’s Batman is strongly influenced by regrets about his past, with Dick Grayson’s death obviously weighing heavily on his mind throughout Batman v Superman. In addition, Luthor casually killing off his loyal assistant underlines that he’s willing to sacrifice anything in order to take down Superman.
Whether that’s worth losing the stories we could have seen with these characters is up to you, though the fact that Warner Bros. seems to be doing their best to erase Snyder’s fingerprints suggests some of them may return soon.
Published: Jul 5, 2022 04:03 am