DC created the modern superhero, although some might argue that Marvel perfected it. After DC brought together its greatest heroes together as a well-oiled team of professional heroes with The Justice League of America, Marvel subverted that by creating a family of bickering heroes in The Fantastic Four. The Silver Age of the 1960’s would go on to follow the idea that DC heroes are efficient, loved by the public, and work well with each other while Marvel heroes are flawed, neurotic, and have problems with their public image. Later eras of DC and Marvel history went on to switch things up and go back and forth, but we can still consider this a key difference between DC and Marvel heroes, and it has translated to the heroes of the current Marvel movies. In wanting to be as successful as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC has been playing catch-up with Marvel and lost what made its heroes unique in the first place. DC is supposed to be the place that presents a world of heroes we can look up to, but that seems to be lost these days.
Superman predated all Marvel’s big name heroes, most of them by about 20 years, and there’s still no one quite like him. It might be compelling to see the highly flawed Iron Man or the constantly down on his luck and full of doubt Spider-Man, but that doesn’t make them better characters than Superman. Superman, like all characters, does have his struggles and weaknesses, but he’s also the greatest hero of all time and is often considered the living embodiment of hope. Yet in movies, Superman seems to fall short of 
this. In 2006, Superman Returns had Superman fail at finding his long dead people and then fail at taking responsibility for his own child. 2013’s Man of Steel gave us a Superman early in his career who caused so much collateral damage that Batman went after him and Superman ended up dead. He came back for the Justice League movie only to be the antagonist for most of the movie. With a fresh new Superman this year, we have the chance to see Superman as he should be.
I don’t want to blame every bit of DC media for trying to play up their heroes’ weaknesses and failings over their virtue. Many individual heroes have been depicted as aspirational. The DCEU Wonder Woman and the Flash from the recent TV show were heroes you could look up to. Where DC continuously falls short is its inability to depict teams of seasoned heroes who respect each other and work well together. It seems like every team from a movie or TV show that comes out of DC is either a comedic team of screw-ups or a dysfunctional group who succeed despite each other.
Using superhero teams as a source of comedy makes a certain amount of sense. We see these on TV, and if you’re going to have a bunch of super powered characters, you probably don’t have the budget to have them constantly and efficiently using their powers. So if they can’t look cool, they can at least get some laughs. Two of DC’s recent team shows, Legends of Tomorrow and Doom Patrol, ran on this idea. The Legends began as a team of losers plucked from their lives because their absence wouldn’t have made an impact on history. Season one had some heavy stories, but as the show went on, there were more absurd plots with silly solutions. The Legends often screwed up assignments and had to clean up their own messes. Likewise, the Doom Patrol came together because 
each individual character could no longer function properly in society. Their founder, Niles Caulder, constantly lied to and misled them, and they struggled with their own abilities while getting sucked into crazy adventures. It took several episodes until they decided to try their hands at being heroes and even adopt the name “Doom Patrol”. Both shows were entertaining and had their strengths, but they were by no means paragons of heroism.
Live action superheroes have the excuse of needing to stay on budget, but where does that leave animation? Teen Titans Go! is the longest running DC cartoon ever, and it’s entirely comedic. The Teen Titans are only superheroes in the academic sense, and their encounters with villains are usually just set-ups to whatever comedic twist is used to drive the episode. Comedy seems to be king in animated hero teams too, as Justice League Action in 2016 and DC Super Hero Girls in 2019 followed suit and preferred sitcom-like plots filled with gags to solid heroics.
So that leaves movies for the impressive fight scenes and inspiring heroics. The Justice League direct to video animated movies suffered from being increasingly violent or just grim. The DCEU Justice League should have been the team to define teams. The team that villains fear and all the heroes want to join. The team that ensures the world sleeps safe at night. So what happened? They quickly lost steam after two appearances, and the flaws were there from the very beginning. Batman was wracked with guilt, Wonder Woman was in seclusion, and the others were still very early in their careers. It’s good for a set-up, but these are shortcomings they needed to overcome to be a proper Justice League. Their next appearance in The Flash in 2023 (which only had half the members) still had them stumbling over each other, and Flash comments about the team needing to work on some things. We never got that moment of them coming together as the greatest force of good ever.
The Suicide Squad (that being the second movie) ended up being the best team movie of the DCEU. The concept of the Suicide Squad is villains with unique skills and powers that are being forced to do the government’s bidding. Having coerced villains doing good despite themselves is a great concept, but it just makes the absence of truly altruistic heroes more glaring. What made the second movie much better than the first was the unique tone it set, and it also became the gateway for James Gunn to enter the DC Universe.
James Gunn’s next team was the Creature Commandos. Unlike the Suicide Squad, they were an animated series. But like the Suicide Squad, the Creature Commandos are made up of monstrous beings forced into Amanda Waller’s service. The cast of characters may be different, but what brings the team together is the same thing. Even Gunn’s work for Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy, was a reluctant team that operated in that realm of shades of gray. Does Gunn’s strengths lie in these kinds of characters rather than a group of powered heroes who do good because it’s the right thing to do?
Superman introduced the first iteration of James Gunn’s Justice League and, I fear, it’s much of the same. Superman isn’t part of this proto-Justice League (or Justice Gang, which is the closest thing to a name they adopt), and there are only three members. It’s similar to how the Justice Society played supporting characters to clash with Black Adam and ultimately make him look good in his movie. Mr. Terrific, the Guy Gardner Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl bicker with each other, care about their public image, and shoot first and ask questions later. What’s worse is that they do some of the dirty work Superman refuses to do and even kill a couple times. They may be powerful, but they 
remain flawed. We could say this is just an early version of the team that needs Superman and some other members to join and elevate them, but isn’t that just where we were with the DCEU’s Justice League? Superman wasn’t an ensemble movie, and the other heroes were just supporting characters, but this can’t be the best we can get.
So where do we go from here? It’s not the right time for television. With Titans and Doom Patrol having ended fairly recently, it’s unlikely we’ll get a hero team in a live action show anytime soon. And if Creature Commandos and Suicide Squad Isekai are any indication, the animated hero teams are going to stick with the unheroic misfits for a while.
That means our best hope is with the Justice League in a theatrically released movie. And maybe that’s the way it should be. A big budget movie can capture the Justice League in all its glory, especially if Superman is there to stand among them. From what we’ve seen of him in his movie, he has the makings of an aspirational hero. He’s brave, he’s powerful, and he’s a good man. Now is the time to put him alongside Batman, Wonder Woman, and other big names to create something we haven’t seen in a long time – larger than life heroes who can overcome impossible odds and save the day This can be the reconstruction of the definitive superhero team after so much deconstruction.
