Source: screenrant.com

1. Bringing Hope and Optimism to the DCEU

One of the reasons people meme-ified the dumb “The S stands for hope” line from Man of Steel (Aside from its being a bad comic book retcon that I personally find ridiculous. It’s an S. It stands for Superman. You aren’t fooling anyone.) was that the film otherwise felt completely absent of said hope.

Superman spends more time in these movies moping around and getting mad at stuff with angry heat vision eyes than he does being inspiring. All of the moments in BvS in which he’s helping people are played as “Is he a false god”, “How do we know we can trust him” BS, which prevents those moments from working either.

But this movie is full of hope. Wonder Woman’s ENTIRE MOTIVATION is that she believes if Ares is stopped, all of humanity will just go back to being buddies with each other, because people are inherently good. Even when faced with horrors and villainy, Diana shines through as a beam of light for all humanity to aspire to. She’s kind and joyous and sweet. In that moment where she thanks the ice cream vendor and tells him to be proud of what he’s made, she is the perfect DC superhero. She protects the world at large while standing alongside the people on the ground.

I thought that Superman should be the beacon of hope for the DCEU, the character that sets the ultimate standard. But it turns out that that character is Wonder Woman.

And to be honest, I’m pretty okay with that.