Ben Affleck's Batman in front of Bruce Wayne and the Bat suit from the DCEU Zack Snyder‘s DCEU may be contentious, but he recently proved that he could make some interesting DC films if the studio would allow him to explore one of their new film venues. In a recent interview, Snyder defended his controversial killer Batman from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While he didn’t fully justify the choice to break Batman’s character, his reasoning behind it did highlight some concepts regarding the superhero genre that have some pertinent weight to them.

Snyder said his goal in making Batman kill was to deconstruct the character. While whether the director was successful is debatable, this is a good perspective to have when approaching characters that are over 80 years old. After all, Watchmen, one of the most successful superhero stories, was Alan Moore’s deconstruction of Steve Ditko’s Objectivist heroes. If given the right venue to explore his ideas, Snyder might be able to more effectively deconstruct a superhero, and DC’s upcoming releases seemingly now show it has the room to let him do it.

DC’s Elseworlds Would Allow Snyder To Tell The Type Of Story He Wants

Arrowverse Elseworlds Crossover logo

Snyder’s Man of Steel explored concepts that many popular comic storylines had – with the main divisive aspect of this movie and its follow-ups being that it took the grittier iteration of these heroes and made them the main DCEU timeline. Had Snyder been allowed to continue without being the architect of a MCU-style enterprise, his Man of Steel franchise may have been able to deliver a tighter and more polished narrative. However, DC is now making Elseworlds projects, a place where Snyder’s unique style of superhero movies would fit perfectly.

Elseworlds is DC’s name for upcoming projects that won’t connect to the larger DCU. These are projects like Joker: Folie à Deux and The Batman – Part II. One of DC’s CEOs, James Gunn, also confirmed that JJ Abrams will still be making a Superman Elseworlds film despite Gunn’s Superman coming out soon. These films will likely have a bit more creative freedom, since they don’t have to conform to Gunn’s plan for the DCU. This would have been the perfect environment to allow Snyder to create standalone superhero projects.

Zack Snyder Would Be Free To Lean Fully Into His Style In DC’s Elseworlds

Henry Cavill's Superman Stepping Through The Doorway To The Fortress Of Solitude Framed In Light In Man of Steel

As a director and creative, Zack Snyder has a very distinct style of visual storytelling. This, combined with his stated goal of examining and deconstructing superheroes, should, in theory, combine to create some unique interpretations of DC’s characters.

It’s hard to fully evaluate how well Snyder did this with Man of Steel, given the original sequel plans Snyder worked on were canceled and changed to become the DCEU. As such, it’s a shame DC’s movie iteration of Elseworlds arrived years after the director’s films, as an iteration of them without the pressure to match up to contemporary franchise concerns may have made a less divisive end product.

A potential Elseworlds project would likely give Snyder even more freedom to lean into his signature style and make risky narrative decisions, since DC would have its mainline DCU movies to rely on. While the full scope of DC’s Elseworlds plans is currently unknown, if they continue to grow beyond the current slate, then Snyder seems like a good choice for someone to give a project to. Perhaps with fewer franchise expectations hanging on the outcome of his work, Zack Snyder would be able to create the meaningful superhero deconstruction he sought to make originally.