‘Suicide Squad’ director’s attempt to heal the DCU division ends up having the complete opposite effect

The internet would love to have you believe otherwise, but it’s entirely possible to enjoy all of the various strands of storytelling to have emerged from Warner Bros. and DC over the last decade, with David Ayer making an admirable attempt to heal the divisions.

Unfortunately, the fandom has been split into two distinct camps, and they love few things more than trashing the other. In one corner you have the vocal SnyderVerse subset who refuse to accept any and all DC content that isn’t at least tangentially connected to Zack Snyder’s mythos, and in the other there are those keen to see how James Gunn and Peter Safran handle the impending overhaul.

Caught somewhere in the middle are the franchises built out from Todd Phillips’ Joker and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, but they generally tend to get a pass for being Elseworlds stories. Barely a day goes by without some sort of online firefight breaking out, and that’s exactly what happened when the Suicide Squad director backed the sentiment that it’s okay to like what you like.

Even though it’s been seven years since Suicide Squad was mauled as the worst-reviewed installment in DCU history, Ayer maintains a level of confidence that he’ll be allowed to release his preferred cut eventually. His film is embedded in the SnyderVerse, he was thanked in the credits of Gunn’s soft reboot, and he’s a fan of quality comic book storytelling above all else, so he’s in a solid position to urge for calm.

Of course, based on what we’ve seen over the last handful of years, achieving it will prove to be a lot trickier.