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The DCEU's Biggest Problem Is Still How It Treats Its Villains


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One of the most persistent issues with the DCEU is in its handling and treatment of its villains, and it's something that has come up in almost every entry into the franchise to date. So far, the DCEU has proved to be relatively underwhelming as a franchise. This is especially evident when it's considered alongside its most direct contemporary, the MCU, with Marvel Studios consistently churning out the biggest and most successful movies to dominate the box office. As a result of the high-profile nature of the franchises, the DCEU's struggle to keep up with its Marvel counterpart is well-documented and well-debated.

Many hold Warner Bros. responsible for the DCEU's mistakes, although the specifics of the franchise's shortcomings are still much debated. Among the most common criticisms of the franchise are the DCEU's needlessly dark and gritty tone, its overambitious use of established comic book storylines, and the bizarre creative liberties taken with many of its heroes. Though the DCEU has found some notable success with a few of its movies and it appears that the Warner Bros. Discovery takeover may have a positive impact on the overall franchise, there are still a wealth of issues that must be resolved before it can even hope to match the cinematic successes of its direct rival.

However, the DCEU's most persistent issue is actually a relatively subtle one: it wastes its villains. The problem with the DCEU's villains varies from movie to movie, but there's almost always a distinct issue with the way in which the franchise handles its antagonists. This has already resulted in the death of many major franchise villains, with many more being rendered powerless or otherwise severely incapacitated. By preventing itself from establishing any lasting villains, the DCEU has yet to make use of any characters that feel like a genuine threat to its heroes, and this has hurt the existing movies within the franchise.

The DCEU Keeps Killing Villains

In a relatively short span of films, the DCEU has killed a surprising number of villains. The very first film in the franchise does so, with Superman killing General Zod during the film's climactic battle, and though it was divisive, the deaths didn't stop there. Doomsday was seemingly killed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Enchantress dies in Suicide Squad, Ares was killed in Wonder Woman, Black Mask was murdered in Birds of Prety and the ending of Justice League heavily implies that Steppenwolf is killed.

Not only does this apparent obsession with murdering the franchise's villains persist throughout almost all of its live-action movies, but the villains killed are often significant ones for their respective heroes. Many of the villains that the DCEU has already killed are regularly recurring and important villains in the comics, which separates the movies from the source material. However, perhaps the worst aspect is that the heroes (or anti-heroes, in the Suicide Squad's case) often find killing the villains far too easy, not just wasting the DCEU's villains but doing so in a way that makes its heroes seem decidedly un-heroic.

Surviving DCEU Villains Often Lose Their Power

In addition to the killing off of a great many of its villains, the DCEU's movies also seem to have a propensity for rendering the antagonistic survivors powerless. This is evidenced numerous times: Lex Luthor survives Batman v Superman but is imprisoned and loses his wealth and influence (a plot point that has so far not been properly paid off). Maxwell Lord loses all of his power at the end of Wonder Woman 1984. Orm loses the loyalty of his followers in Aquaman after being defeated. Though these films may not kill their villains outright, their endings do little justice to their characters, and this, too, is part of the DCEU's villain problem.

Although it's not unreasonable to write Luthor recovering his wealth and power, or Orm retaining a small contingent of disgruntled Atlanteans by his side, the DCEU has already wasted the characters. Having them introduced as powerful, intelligent, manipulative figures (as Luthor, Lord, and Orm all are) only to have them defeated and this all taken away only implies that they simply aren't as formidable as they seem. By making their defeat all too easy within their respective DCEU films, the franchise has undermined their potential as recurring villains from the offset.

Villain Design Is Another Key DCEU Problem

In addition to how the DCEU handles its villains' endings, there's also something of a recurring design issue. In Batman v Superman, Doomsday and Lex Luthor were widely disliked upon their DCEU debuts, due largely to the extensive creative liberties taken with their origins and characterization, respectively. The live-action franchise's version of Doomsday was a Kryptonian-human hybrid genetic mutation, and Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was criticized for the bizarre choice to make him more in line with the Riddler or the Joker than Superman's formidable and calculating archnemesis.

Steppenwolf being chosen as Justice League's big bad was a baffling enough choice, but the presentation of the character as little more than an angular block of CGI rendered in a drab color palette was an insult to his comic book counterpart. Jared Leto's Joker in Suicide Squad also missed the mark considerably, thoroughly wasted in his extraneous capacity in the film while simultaneously being shown far too much to be genuinely interesting. The DCEU's tonal issue is well-known, but nowhere is it more obvious in the way that the franchise's villains are designed.

How The DCEU Can Fix Its Villain Problem (And Why It's So Important)

To fix its villain problem, the DCEU simply needs to begin creating more interesting and layered villains that actually prove to be a match for the franchise's heroes. The MCU's success in this area serves as a perfect template: teasing a powerful villain (or alliance of multiple villains) over the course of a number of films, slowly building upon their role in the franchise and therefore making them feel far more substantial. The DCEU's fondness for alien villains can still work, but any big bad introduced as a Justice League-level threat need to be properly introduced and characterized, instead of treated as yet another throwaway antagonist.

Making its villains work is absolutely key to the DCEU's future success. Without appropriate threats to face, the heroes of the franchise feel ineffective and somewhat unnecessary, making their defeat of its villains ultimately unsatisfying. By fixing the way it treats its villains, the DCEU could finally get itself on track and begin to catch up to the successes of its Marvel counterpart.

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