What do you get when you put Zack Snyder on a Joe Rogan podcast? If your answer was a ‘Snyder Cut of controversy,’ then you can give yourself a pat on the back. Hollywood’s favorite (?) cinematic provocateur recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, rekindling the debate around his darker, grittier vision for the DC Universe, specifically on the choice to arm Batman with a license to kill.
Ever since Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice made its debut in 2016, the internet has been filled with heated discussions about the essence of superhero morality, or the lack thereof, in Snyder’s universe.
From Snyder’s perspective, his fascination with deconstructing superhero archetypes has always been less about rebellion for the sake of rebellion and more about an exploration of complex themes. To him making Batman, the proverbial ‘god’ of Gotham, capable of killing isn’t about tarnishing a legacy but rather challenging it.
“Batman can’t kill is canon. And I’m like, ‘Okay, the first thing I wanna do when you say that is I wanna see what happens’. And they go, ‘Well don’t put him in a situation where he has to kill someone’. You’re protecting your god in a weird way, right? You’re making your god irrelevant if he can’t be in that situation. He has to now deal with that. If he does do that what does that mean? What does it tell you, does he stand up to it? Does he survive that as a god? As your god, can Batman survive that?”
This isn’t Snyder’s first rodeo in the realm of superhero existentialism. His body of work, including the much-discussed extended cut of Justice League, often ventures into the murky waters of hero morality.
However, it’s his take on Batman, a character historically shrouded in a no-kill policy (though this is arguable), that has fans and critics alike revisiting the age-old debate: What happens when our heroes cross the line?
I’m not the biggest Snyder fan, but I can defend his take on the Caped Crusader in Dawn of Justice. Right out of the gate, Snyder shows how Batman (in his Bruce Wayne alter ego) tried to save innocents in Gotham from the carnage left behind by Superman’s battle with Zod.
Feeling helpless when faced by the sheer power of the Kryptonians, Batman becomes disillusioned and heads down a dark path that sees him become the very embodiment of Harvey Dent’s quote, “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Batman’s actions come to a head when he finds himself standing over Superman with a Kryptonite spear, ready to execute him mercilessly. Confronted by the reality of what he’s become, Batman begins his arc of redemption by saving Superman’s mother, though he admittedly still kills a lot of baddies to accomplish this.
While Snyder never truly gave us a complete redemption arc for Batman, I’ll give him props for trying to depict what superheroes would look like in the real world. That said, the whole “Martha” thing was really dumb.
Now that the Batman character has moved into the hands of James Gunn and Peter Safran, DC fans will be keen to see what kind of interpretation the Dark Knight will get once The Brave and the Bold premieres. Unfortunately, this will not be happening anytime soon.
