From day one, the DC Extended Universe has been demonstrating how many instances that were commonplace in the comics, cartoons and even earlier films would either come with serious consequences or would require an extensive backstory to realize if they played out within the framework of 21st Century realism.
General Deconstructions
- Captain Patriotic: Peacemaker styles himself as a typical patriotic superhero fighting for peace and freedom. However, it becomes immediately clear that he's a delusional nationalist who is perfectly willing to resort to murder if he thinks it will defend his country, and he turns on the rest of the Suicide Squad in spite of bonding with them the second they go against U.S. interests by threatening to expose the U.S. government's involvement in the Corto Maltese government's experiments on Starro, even though it would be the morally right thing to do. His series deconstructs this further, as it's shown that his ideals and vigilantism stem from being raised by an abusive white supremacist who trained him to enforce his own twisted ideas of justice.
- Clark Kenting: In Man Of Steel, Clark is shown taking on a number of different personas altogether, switching different styles of clothing and different levels of beard growth. Lois manages to find out who he is by tracking him through his previous jobs and good deeds, taking his actual appearance out of the equation. In Batman v Superman, Lex Luthor was also able to determine his identity, presumably through similar investigation and rationale. He was also able to identify Bruce Wayne as Batman, implying that these secret identities are not as ironclad as they normally are in the comics.
- Crapsack World: Clark feels alone and isolated because the world is not fully ready to accept someone like him. He still becomes Superman, doing good deeds, but his existence makes him a controversial figure and it's an uphill battle to prove he's not a malevolent invader. Likewise, Batman has had to deal with 20 years of going nowhere in his mission to rid Gotham of crime, rendering him ultra-cynical and among those who don't trust Superman while Wonder Woman saw the brutality of World War I and learned that she can't just fight her way through all of humanity's problems. She also narrowly prevented World War III while having to realize that some of life's miseries are there to stay.
- The Suicide Squad strongly implies that they are victims of the world they live in, but even they can show signs of heroics when the need arises.
- Let's You and Him Fight: The concept of the "superhero vs superhero fight" gets examined and deconstructed as well, shown as to how it would theoretically happen in reality rather than glorifying it. It's ugly and brutal, and it's made clear neither participant is enjoying having to battle each other, Batman deems it necessary (even if for misguided reasons) to kill Superman before he gets the chance to snap and kill the entirety of humanity, while Superman comes to apologize for his own misdeeds and arrogance in their costumed first face-to-face meeting, as well as ask Batman for help in saving his mother. Also, their motivation for fighting each other is based on the fact that they don't know anything about each other, sidestepping the usual narrative obstacles that would prevent two old friends from duking it out.
- Retired Monster/Retired Badass: Auggie Smith / White Dragon is a former soldier and was a feared supervillain in his heyday, but his glory days are long behind him even if he's still regarded as The Dreaded. When he comes out of retirement, he relies mostly on his reputation and intelligence to get by; he notably avoids getting into fights until he's able to get to his Powered Armor. While it does make him a credible threat, once his armor is damaged he's left helpless and is killed fairly easily, as old age and a lengthy retirement left him stripped of his combat skills.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Neither Batman nor Superman espouses such a philosophy directly, but the emotional implications are explored. At the end of Man of Steel, Superman is forced to kill Zod and he is devastated for having to do so. During Batman v Superman Batman had become more callous and hardline on criminals, branding some of the worst with a bat symbol, and lethally neutralizing immediate threats. This is treated as a bad thing, evidence that he had crossed the Despair Event Horizon and at the end of the movie admits he needs to do better. Overall both films are saying that personally taking a life is a thing to treat seriously, but just because you have taken a life doesn't mean you've crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Several major events post-Justice League (2017) have the protagonists forced to confront villains without the aid of the titular League. For a while, it was assumed that the heroes and villains choosing to operate away from the public eye was the reason no other hero would step in, but then Zack Snyder's Justice League ended with the implication that Darkseid was preparing a full-scale invasion of Earth. So now if a Justice League member doesn't rush in to save the day, it's probably because they're busy stalling far worse threats happening at that very moment.
- Decon-Recon Switch: As this article
points out, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were dark and grounded deconstructions of its main characters and how they would really function in a world closer to how our reality functions. But more than that, it deconstructs the concept of deconstruction itself - between Superman dealing with people's fear and paranoia while Batman is clearly suffering from PTSD and general burnout, it's shown that the political and social ramifications of superheroes with such powers existing are not at all pretty. Zack Snyder's Justice League, by comparison, is much lighter and more fantastical, showing how essential superheroes can be when it comes to unrealistic problems like alien invasions. To quote:Batman v Superman pit both Batman and Superman against problems superheroes cannot fix. It is impossible for superheroes to punch their way out of the decaying social trust or rampant xenophobia, but the evil Darkseid (Ray Porter) provides an embodiment of fascism that characters can punch in the face. - Vigilante Man: Peacemaker has a comedic deconstruction of this trope in the form of the character Vigilante. Much like Peacemaker himself, Vigilante believes himself to be a superhero, but utterly fails to comprehend the concept of moral ambiguity. As a result, he believes that All Crimes Are Equal, admits to having killed people over graffiti, and even implies that he's made mistakes and killed innocence or the falsely accused. Director James Gunn has even gone on record stating he believes that this is what would happen with real life vigilantism.
Individual Characters
- Superman: The appearance of an alien Physical God is not met with hope and awe everywhere. Superman has to face a great deal of paranoia and skepticism, especially in light of unprovoked hostilities from his native race. Distrust of a figure with such power eventually leads to drastic action that threatens more than just the targeted threat.
- General Zod deconstructs the Evil Counterpart trope by demonstrating that when a hero and villain are evenly matched, there's no chance at a clean and easy victory for either party. Zod loses everything and Superman's inability to avoid any deaths or collateral damage leads to some (namely Batman) mistakenly assuming he wasn't even trying to protect anybody.
- Lex Luthor is a hyperactive maniac who could only run a megacorp by way of nepotism, as anyone who would dedicate their lives towards the degradation and death of someone like Superman would not be mentally healthy enough to function as a respectable member of society.
- Batman: Batman is shown to be burned out and cynical as a result of waging his one-man war on crime for years with nothing truly changing as a result and losing his sidekick to the Joker. Having no meaningful victories and taking personal losses for years on end meant his morals have frayed to the point that he willingly takes actions that he knows will result in death for those he targets, being one step away from full-blown murder and it only takes what he sees as his paranoia being validated to cross that line.
- Additionally, when we first see Batman, he's still in mourning over the death of Robin and hasn't yet formed the Justice League. He also doesn't have a major love interest like other cinematic takes on Batman. This presents the implication that having no meaningful relationships outside of Alfred is affecting his mental health. It's not until he starts working with others that he regains his idealism.
- Superman's appearance adds to all of this, since the trauma of witnessing the Kryptonian invasion (for which he also holds Superman responsible) first hand, and Bruce's feelings of complete and utter impotence as he could only watch while people were killed left and right when gods duked it out without a care, make him realize just how little all of his actions and morals mean when people like Superman could just obliterate the world in a snap if they wished to.
- Wonder Woman: Diana goes to man's world to try and save humanity during one of their darkest conflicts but her experiences cause her to turn away from them, believing that humankind has to resolve its own troubles. Her brief reprisal in the 1980s only reaffirmed this view when she sees what happens when humankind is given a taste of the fantastic.
- Aquaman: Arthur Curry's usually written as an outsider that doesn't quite fit in on the surface and isn't always welcomed in Atlantis but tries to look after it out of a sense of duty. Here he's a lot more hostile towards Atlantis, returning the hatred he's shown in equal measure. He wants nothing to do with the Atlanteans because they killed his mother out of xenophobia for her time on the surface. He can't really fit in on the surface so he spends his time looking out for others that wouldn't be helped otherwise and outright refuses to go to Atlantis for the prior stated reasons. He only gets involved with the affairs of his mother's home when Atlantis begins attacking the surface at the order of his brother, who pretty much hates Arthur merely for existing and blames him for their mother's death.
- Shazam!: The Wizard's search for a champion with a pure heart. When Billy Batson meets him he outright admits he isn't what the Wizard is searching for and it's shown that such a person simply can not exist because Humans Are Flawed. The Wizard looked for literal ages and kept passing over possible champions because they didn't meet his standards, keeping his search going for far longer than it truly needed to. Not only that but his actions towards one possible choice are directly possible for creating a new villain obsessed with claiming the power to cope with the very flaws that denied them being granted it. Billy only receives the power because the Wizard is literally on his final breath and the power will be needed soon, leaving it almost entirely luck that someone virtuous enough to serve as a champion could act as one.
- Black Adam: Adam status as a Fallen Hero which played into the Wizard's motives in Shazam. As it turns out Teth Adam was never actually chosen as a champion. His son Hirut was the actual champion and lived up to the role as intended until he gave them to Adam to save his life, only for Hirut to be killed as a result. Already a cynical and bitter man he used the powers he'd been given to get revenge and as a result was locked away. While still a morally complex individual who doesn't fit neatly into the role of either hero or villain it's also made clear that his issues come as much from his own failings as they do from the world around him, making it clear that his downfall wasn't simply a case of "power corrupts".
