In Snyder’s planned five film arc there was going to be a kind of pendulum swing back and forth between realistic and fantastical. We saw it with MoS, BvS, and ZSJL. MoS was grounded to get the ball rolling with all the deconstruction elements. BvS went hard with deconstruction to pose the question of whether superheroes existing in our real world would actually be a good thing. (Answer is very mixed as in real life, but overall: yes, there’s good reason to be hopeful about it because of the noblest virtues that superheroes represent. This btw is opposite the conclusion Alan Moore made with Watchmen. Watchmen is Snyder’s main inspiration for deconstruction.) In BvS the superheroes are struggling with real world, real life problems. But in ZSJL we see a “reconstruction“ of genre conventions going on with a return to, and an embrace, of fantastical superhero tropes. The JL is battling an extraterrestrial otherworldly threat with powers that are for all practical purposes “magical.” (Although Arthur C. Clark famously said that technology can become so advanced that it’s indistinguishable from “magic” to those that lack understanding of it.) In JL 2 we remain in a highly fantastical space of ETs decimating earth after an invasion; but the real world deconstructionist problem of superheroes potentially becoming evil gets its full expression with Superman under Darkseid’s antilife equation thrall. Then I predict in JL 3, if we ever get it, we’d see an all-out celebration of conventional superhero genre tropes, a kind of love letter to the fantastical elements of comic books. All of earth’s superheroes and supervillains (including Luthor’s legion, JL Dark), plus Atlanteans, Amazons, the GL Corps, Thangarians, and New Genesis gods would assemble to protect earth from one final assault by Apokolips.
So again, the pendulum would swing back and forth between realistic/deconstructionist and escapist/fantastical.
