To say that there’s a lot going on under the surface of Zack Snyder’s Justice League would be an understatement. I’ll start by identifying two main reasons why.
First, the film is clearly a commentary on evolution of the superhero genre. We’ll explore that in this article in some depth, but at the outset I will refer the reader to Darren Mooney’s excellent article in Escapist magazine “Zack Snyder’s DCEU Is a Nine-Hour Joyride Through Decades of Comic Book History.” (And please do actually read it, it’s outstanding!) The reader can read my other articles featured on this blog for further supporting evidence as well.
Second, there is also the substructure of Snyder’s achievement in miraculously getting his vision of the film completed (with, shall we say, fairly minimal studio interference) once he was able to finally pitch his fabled director’s cut to AT&T/HBO Max execs. The full story behind this has yet to be told, I believe. For instance only just the other day an article appeared in which Zack Snyder shared that he feared he would be sued by WB for encouraging fans to push for release of his director’s cut.
For the film to have been completed under the circumstances surrounding it was an astounding achievement. ZSJL’s completion involved a strange confluence of factors including a global hopefully once-in-century pandemic, the suicide of the director’s daughter, the ascendancy of streaming platforms as the movie theater industry is in decline, and the surprising impact of a grassroots social media campaign by a movie’s devoted fandom. Snyder’s army of fans represents a new paradigm for relationship of moviegoer to film studio. The director’s power struggle with Warner Brothers serves as a touchstone for the longstanding tug-of-war between the fundamental human impulses that drive art and capitalism to produce entertainment films. Here fans became a tool the director could leverage in a way that was unprecedented, at least to such a powerful degree.
These foundations upon which ZSJL is erected take place at an extremely important scale for nerds who love superhero films and comics. Superhero films are currently the biggest moneymakers in the film industry and have been for the last two decades. And as such, therefore another factor to consider is that within the entertainment industry the development of DC properties for feature films and streaming service miniseries has been essentially rudderless since Warner Brothers abandoned Snyder’s vision shortly after the harsh critical reception to BvS. (While Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe surges forward with well planned films and streaming service miniseries that consistently please it’s fandom.) This has left most fans of DC alienated and frustrated, including both pro- and anti-Snyder fandoms. DC superheroes are an enormous potential source of revenue. A lot of future earnings for WB Pictures and HBO Max depend on how DC characters are handled moving forward.
For all these reasons and more it’s no exaggeration to assert that ZSJL stands as an important film. Certainly for hardcore fans of superhero films. But also for what it represents for the entertainment industry in general.
Whereas Man of Steel and Batman v Superman Were Deconstructions, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a Reconstruction
First, please read Darren Mooney’s article. I will try to summarize it. But give it the full read.
I’m not sure if Mooney has everything one hundred percent right about what Zack is trying to say overall, as I’ll discuss below. But Mooney lays bare the architecture to Snyder’s references to important comic book sources, and what those references mean.
Snyder’s use of callbacks in particular to The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and the Death of Superman reflects a turbulent decade in comics from 1986 through the mid 90s when the spirit of deconstruction initiated by TDKR and Watchmen dominated the industry. Comics got very serious in tone and strove for a more realistic, grounded feel, with more adult themes and mature emotional conflicts.
I would add to this an observation by Thomas Schatz from his book “Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and The Studio System” that as genres evolve they become increasingly self-conscious and comment on their own conventions. The audience, is on the one hand reassured and soothed by continual retelling of the genre’s core tropes and conventions. But on the other hand, at the same time the audience also yearns for themes to become increasingly mature and sophisticated so that they don’t get bored. It’s something akin to an adult having a conversation with a child versus an adult. Early in the evolution of a genre the themes, values, and ideals that the genre embodies are simplistically taken at face value, unreflectingly, by the audience. As the those core themes get ritualistically retold again and again through the genre’s films, the audience (or the human psyche, really) unconsciously demands more introspection.
As the comic book superhero “grew up” during that period of deconstruction, some comics missed the point of what Watchmen and TDKR were trying to do. Those comics copied the basic style while remaining out of touch (presumably) to the deeper intent of those two masterworks.
Mooney observes that this chaotic period that produced “The Death of Superman” has been dubbed “the Dark Age of comics.” And Mooney proposes that there are two symbolic references in ZSJL to it as such: the terrorist group that Wonder Woman thwarts is trying to plunge the world back into a Dark Age; and Steppenwolf to the Amazons heralds “the Great Darkness.”
This gives an entirely new layer of meaning to Superman’s death in BvS. The decision to kill Superman upset many fans for doing it too soon, in only the second film of the franchise. As we now know, Snyder never intended to mimic the Marvel Cinematic Universe and instead had planned to tell a more concise saga in five films that was also a treasure trove of symbolic Easter egg references and metatextual meanings; probably a la Joseph Campbell, for sure, but perhaps as well informed simply by Snyder’s own unique personal vision as an artist in the cinematic comic medium. In that sense Snyder’s cut would clearly be the work of an auteur, versus “film by committee.”
Another keen observation by Mooney is that the actors in Watchmen either directly or more symbolically, assume parental or paternalistic roles Man of Steel, BvS, and ZSJL. That is, with the exception of Matthew Goode whom played Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias. However note that although it may be coincidental, Jeremy Irons who plays the father figure Alfred to Bruce Wayne, also played Adrian Veidt in the HBO miniseries Watchmen. But in all events, Watchmen is symbolically identified as the parent, or progenitor, or creator god, if you will, in Snyder’s saga.
The idea Mooney puts forth here is that of a parent’s desire for his or her child to mature into a fully formed independent (and eventually individuated) adult. Snyder feels that the true soul of deconstruction in Watchmen should push the archetypes beyond where they were left with Watchmen to become something more unified, integrated, and whole. The superhero archetype must transcend the deconstructionist existential hollowness of Watchmen. Snyder himself has commented on the emptiness one feels after finishing Watchmen (see my other articles on this site). He says it made him feel the need to redeem Superman, with Superman representing the perfect ideal of the superhero archetype itself.
A fictional setting allows for values, morals, and ideals that the hero embodies to be expressed in an ideal form. In imagination those things can exist as something akin to Plato’s Pure Ideas or Forms. As Plato explained, a rose, for example, itself is not “beauty.” Rather beauty is an essential quality, or essence, that transcends boundaries of the physical world. The quality of beauty inheres in objects but in itself it is always greater than the specific thing that it embodies or animates. And in a sense it always exists on another plane.
Deconstruction takes the fictional imaginal character and places him/her/them into a setting resembling our real world. This act places philosophical ideals, moral themes, social values, and so forth into a messy, problematic framework in which an infinitude of things lie inherently beyond everyone’s control in physical reality. As the ancient Greeks saw it, humans are the playthings of the gods. Despite whatever agency we are able to exert in our own right personally, as well as when banding together collectively, at a deeper level ultimately we are ever in the hands of the Fates. And as we well know the Fates are very often cruel and uncaring. Every day bad things, sometimes truly terrible things, happen to people that by any logical reckoning don’t deserve it. Tragedy occurs as an integral and character building part of life. And yes it is undeserved and unfair (which is the definition of tragedy, basically).
In all events, this in turn consistently undermines the perfect simplicity and purity of an ideal form. Certainly with respect to the human condition, anyway!
So loss… and then often also accompanying disappointment, regret, disillusionment, and so forth… is a part of life. As Robert Frost’s classic elegiac poem reminds us, “nothing gold can stay.” And from a Jungian standpoint the inevitability of loss is the Shadow that is eternally linked to life’s highs, the peak moments in life in which one enters a state of “flow” and temporarily loses a sense of life’s transience.
It is in this sense that as Mooney notes that Frank Miller commented that the combination of TDKR and Watchmen in the same year “… really did feel to me like a handful of grown-up fans waving our childhood heroes a fond goodbye.” Mooney suggests that Snyder’s intent is however to refuse to accept Watchmen as an endpoint for the evolution of the superhero genre.
There is a sadness to coming to terms with the fact the our superheroes represent strivings that are nigh but impossible to execute in real life. But Mooney feels Snyder is saying that this is not in fact the end-all/be-all of the superhero archetype. In the grand tapestry of life it must to be reborn, and Zack Snyder is as an artist is trying to facilitate that rebirth. (A midwife, if you will.)
And while I do think this is essentially correct, I would also argue that this emotional sense of loss, of pain, regret, emptiness, sadness at things unfinished, of something that can never be the same again after it’s gone or has ended, and then which gives rise to elegy, nevertheless absolutely permeates ZSJL.
As Mooney observes, MoS and BvS deconstruct. They dismantle superhero mythology by placing it in the real world where it can’t exist ideally anymore. ZSJL reconstructs what has been broken apart and puts it back together–or at least it attempts to! Whether that can ever actually work I think Snyder deliberately leaves an open question, and I’ll return to that in a bit.
Mooney points out that it’s no accident that one of the chapters is titled “All the King’s Men.” In ZSJL Superman is the key to victory in the story. So he is resurrected in an act of symbolic reconstruction. But even if Mooney doesn’t mention it (in the article I’ve referenced) it’s clearly implicit: Cyborg’s relationship to the mother box and his heroic statement “I’m not broken. And I’m not alone” is even more the beating heart of the reconstruction than even Superman’s resurrection.
It is tempting as such to ponder that perhaps criticisms of BvS not feeling cohesive, and claims that Zack Snyder is “poor at execution” or “great at visuals but a bad storyteller,” etc., are, through this lens, simply mirroring the chaos in the comics world exemplified by The Death of Superman. It may not be that much of a stretch. Some will consider that an overreach. Perhaps it is.
ZSJL Is a Reconstruction That Is Also Elegiac
We tend to think of reconstruction in the broadest sense, as the act of taking something broken and repairing it, making whole again, as something that should be triumphant, joyous. But throughout ZSJL there is an elegiac emotional tone. For those unfamiliar with the term, an elegy is poem or song that memorializes someone or something that is lost, that is now permanently gone. ZSJL’s story is tinged throughout with a subtle sense of loss and sadness. Even the moments of triumph have it.
The film opens to a remembrance of the death of Superman, with Kal El’s agonal death scream awakening one of the Apokoliptian mother boxes. The three boxes are described in the story as “change machines.” They represent the fact that the forces of change, evolution, and loss in life are inexorable and inevitable.
From there pretty much the entire film may be appreciated as a succession of elegiac scenes and imagery: Cyborg’s struggle to come to terms with his losses. Lois’s life without Clark. Bruce’s regrets about trying to kill Superman and his sense of a need to repair damage he’s done. Diana’s severed connection to her mother and culture in Themyscira. Arthur’s inability to feel belonging in either human or Atlantean culture. Barry’s implicit Asperger’s (ASD) and loss of both parents (one to murder the other to prison). Silas Stone’s loss of his wife and ongoing estrangement from his son. Even the chief front line antagonist Steppenwolf has experienced a fall from grace and is struggling to redeem himself in the eyes of his dark master, Darkseid.
Diana and Arthur both literally have lamentation music attached to them. And in one of the most powerful examples of elegy, what was originally intended as the introduction to ZSJL had it taken form as a HBO Max TV miniseries shows a mother box morphing through the Justice League members as Greek gods, or in a couple of instances using other classical religious image references, is set to Tom Waites doleful song “Time.” That’s about as elegiac in tone as could be.
The epilogue that Zack Snyder shot of another one of Bruce’s dream visions of the Knightmare future, and Bruce’s ensuing conversation with Martian Manhunter, also has a wistful feel. My guess is that Snyder must surely have realized by then that the chance of completing his saga with Justice League 2 and 3 was scant. I think he knew then that the entire saga was destined to be left unfinished.
In the scene Bruce is just waking from a nightmare. But as he speaks with the Martian Manhunter Bruce’s facial expression, tone of voice, and body language communicate a sense of being existentially depleted and weary, and beleaguered. There’s a sadness to him. When J’onn J’onzz flies off, Bruce mutters “Guess I’ll see you around” as he turns back into the lake house to presumably move forward and get his day started. But with this seemingly hopeful ending the viewer is also cognizant that in fact continuation of this grand, epic adventure is highly unlikely to come to pass. (At least in live action cinema with these particular actors and Zack Snyder directing. Perhaps one day we might see the saga completed in graphic novel or animated film form.) The ending is tinted with a sense of sadness in the real world, as we are left only to dream in imagination of what could have been had the saga been allowed to continue.
Apparent Impact of Autumn
Zack Snyder’s daughter’s suicide is the reason Snyder left post production of Justice League in 2017. He has used the expression “for Autumn” as a rallying cry for his fandom to support of the American Federation of Suicide Prevention. “For Autumn” is the caption the film ends with as it fades to black. The film’s end credits features a rendition of Autumn Snyder’s favorite version of one of Autumn’s favorite songs, Hallelujah, by Allison Crowe.
Living with loss of a loved one to suicide has a profound impact upon the psyche. It is described as an event which requires a kind of ongoing adjustment with no return to the “normal” that existed before it. Such a devastating real life chapter would have to find it’s way into expression of such a highly creative artistic project. Especially given how the core project of Snyder’s commentary on the evolution of the superhero genre in ZSJL resonates in so many ways with such real life emotional content to begin with.
Zack Snyder is a fan of Joseph Campbell’s work, particularly the “monomyth” or “hero’s journey” (see other articles I’ve written on this site). Anyone familiar with Campbell’s books, and/or who has at least watched Bill Moyer’s series of PBS interviews with him, is aware of just how deeply indebted Campbell’s thinking is to the work of Carl Jung. For Jung the work human psychological development is a continual, never-ending project of reconciling and unifying existential and psychological dualities. As Jung once said, “The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain.” In a similar vein, Jung said also “The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport the patient to an impossible state of happiness, but to help them acquire a steadfastness and philosophic patience in face of suffering. Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow.” In other words learn to make your peace, best you can, with the fact that life isn’t black and white, it is gray.
From a Campbellian/Jungian standpoint the reconstruction of the superhero archetype in ZSJL is cyclically demanded by Nature (i.e., the human psyche) itself. And as a deeply structured psychological process it is impossible to undergo the process of symbolic archetypal deconstruction and reconstruction without recognizing that significant movement toward integration and wholeness of the psyche must include acceptance also of painful realities from which there is no flight or escape.
Sadness and loss can… at least in some cases… be poignant and beautiful. Our sense of loss is painful precisely because we cherish and prize what has been lost. Something we cared deeply about, that mattered greatly to us, is gone forever.
So perhaps it can be with our loss of innocence as fans of the superhero genre. Let’s not forget Zack’s reference to Humpty Dumpty in his chapter titles. As the nursery rhyme says, “All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” A similar idea is expressed in the old saying “you can’t go home again.” Sometimes, after what one has been through, things can never be the same again.
I’m not completely sure that this is what Zack Snyder is trying to say by making his take on the deeper metatextual subject matter of ZSJL so powerfully elegiac. But for now the notion of ZSJL suggesting a balance of opposites and radical acceptance is strangely comforting to me. Even if it was unintentional, it has that meaning for me now. And I kind of need that as it gradually sinks in that the entire saga will most likely never be completed.
The Snyderverse 