Well, Comic-Con has come and gone and with it came the full trailers to DC’s next big films for 2016[1]. Of course you had your Mockingjays, and your Star Wars sneak peaks, and my personal favorite: Ash vs. the Evil Dead. But during all of this excitement Marvel Studios decided not to show leaving it up to their Distinguished Competition[2] to display their next big cinematic efforts. There’s never been a more talked about nerd film before Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad has long been ripe for adaptation but our early looks at the second and third installments of the DC Expanded Universe are unlike anything we’ve seen from most of these characters before. Both were certainly grimmer affairs than we’re used to seeing in our big blockbuster superhero films but there were some glimmers of hope among the grime as well as a few villainous soft spots that could tear the whole thing down.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

• “Today is a day for truth.” We open on Holly Hunter’s senator character leading a Senate sub-committee on the destructive actions of Superman in the previous film.[3]
• Superman lands on the Capitol steps amid protestors holding signs demanding he go home. “Superman=Illegal Alien” “God Hates Aliens”[4]
• After witnessing Superman willingly turn himself over for the sub-committee[5] we travel back several months to his fight with Zod. Only this time we’re seeing it from the perspective of Wayne Enterprise’s CEO and a certain masked vigilante played by Ben Affleck.
• As Bruce watches his tower get torn apart by the two Kryptonians’ heat vision he heroically runs head first into the advancing wall of smoke to find anyone he can rescue.[6]
• We next get a smattering of shots of Bruce returning to a ruined Wayne Manor, entering a flooded Bat-Cave, looking over a note left to him by the Joker “You Let Your Family DIE”, pulling a tire with a rope[7], and revealing the new Batsuit that looks like it’s made out of black sandpaper. All this while Jeremy Iron’s Alfred gives him the “cruelty” speech we heard in the original trailer, but this time we get a good look at him and he is simply perfectly cast in the role.
• As the Batman clearly makes a comeback in Metropolis we see Laurence Fishburne’s Perry White tell Clark to lay off covering him as “Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman”.[8]
• Luckily while Batman sparks a new reign of vigilante justice we see shots of Superman rescuing people across the world while Diane Lane’s Martha Kent tells him that he doesn’t “owe the world a thing, you never did”. [9]
• And now we finally come to Jessie Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor wearing one of the worst wigs in recent history.[10] Other than that he seems to have the smarmy confidence Luthor needs and seems to  have some type of mind control-thing going as well as well as access to the body General Zod. I hope this means Bizarro is coming but it’s probably not Bizarro.
  
• We cut back once more to Bruce Wayne brooding over Jason Todd’s vandalized Robin-suit “HAHAHA, Joke’s on YOU BATMAN”.[11]
• And finally we get our first glimpse of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in her civilian garb. More on her in a bit.
  
• As Batman[12] unveils the Bat Signal to challenge the Man of Steel we finally get to the “v.” in the title everyone has been so excited about.
• But before that we get some random montage shots across the world including Bruce witnessing his father (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) gunned down in the street in front of him.[13]
• Chief among these montage shots is Gadot in her actual Wonder Woman costume clanging her silver bracelets together to create some form of shock wave. She looks fierce enough for the second we see her but much like the multitude of heroes rumored to cameo in this film she seems out of place in the trailer.
• Also Batman fights some Superman soldier guys while wearing a desert-camo Batsuit™ among the ruins of some battlefield. Listen, I’m just going to call dream sequence on this one because I have no other explanation.
• Some more fights, Alfred being the only voice of reason, Luthor being giddy over a chunk of Kryptonite, you know, typical trailer stuff.[14]
• “Black and Blue. God vs. Man. Day vs. Night” Luthor has some nice, if a bit literal summation of the themes of the movie but undercuts it with the weird “the red capes are coming” line reading.I miss Kevin Spacey.
  
• And so we end on Superman tearing off the doors of the Batmobile as Batman[15] rises to face the most powerful man in the world.
• Smash cut to the Batman/Superman logo and some of the loudest orchestral music I’ve ever heard.[16]

Suicide Squad

 

• On a less serious note[17], we move on to the Suicide Squad trailer where Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller sits having a steak dinner and explaining her newest Task Force consisting of the “worst of the worst” to some generals.[18]
• As Waller clearly explains how Superman is the cause in the recent surge of supervillains they have for their task force[19] we see some of the rogues who’ll be assembled for the Squad.
• First is Cara Delevingne pre-transformation into the Enchantress.[20]
• Waller explains the crux of the film’s plot with the supervillains acting as “built in plausible deniability” should any of their less than legal missions go south. She also explains her confidence in the program as being “Because getting people to act against their own self-interest is what I do for a living.”[21]
• And Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn[22] makes her film debut as an almost too-creepy cover of the Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke” plays.[23]
• We meet some other Squaders, including El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), Deadshot (Will Smith), and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) before Harley asks Waller if she is in fact the devil.[24]
• As Will Smith says the film’s title before doing his standard hero “Let’s go save the world” line we see the Squad ominously walking through burning streets and pointing their guns at various people/places/things/other nouns. [25]
• There’s a guy in a panda suit shooting up things. It’s not really that important but I feel the need to reiterate the information with you guys.
• After some more montage of the Squad shooting things while being shot at we see a glimpse of the Jokermobile with Batman riding on the top and Harley laughing it away from the passenger seat.[26]
• After some more montage[27] we get a little bit of Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang doing his best Tom Hardy in Mad Max impression asking, “You know what they say about the crazy ones?”[28]
• And then comes the laugh, and out steps our newest Joker.[29]
• “Oh, I’m not going to kill ya…”[30]
• One final Dirty Dozen-esque walking shot of the Squad.[31]
• “I’m just gonna hurt ya, really, really bad.”[32]

[1] It’s still crazy how long it’s taken for them to get any films out in the two years between Man of Steel and BvS but I guess not everyone can move on Marvel time.

[2] As well as the redheaded stepchildren of the Marvel Universe consisting of characters Fox owns such as X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Deadpool, and Fantastic Four. I’d talk about them but none of their trailers have hit the Internet yet.

[3] Brace yourselves, because we’re in for a whole lot of references to the destruction in Man of Steel to assuage the endless fan complaints.

[4] Because the surefire way to not portray your protestors as strawmen is to have them use the same rhetoric as the Westboro Baptist Church…

[5] Because we all remember the scintillating scenes of Tony Stark being pulled in front of the Senate in Iron Man 2.

[6] And snark aside, this may be Zack Snyder’s best shot to date with Wayne being the only person running at the smoke while everyone else gets the hell out of Dodge…or um, Metropolis.

[7] I’m almost positive Bruce Wayne could afford a Bowflex if he wanted a real workout.

[8] You get it guys? Because clearly everyone cares about seeing Clark Kent (aka Superman!) take on the Batman or else we wouldn’t have this! It’s subtle I tell you, subtle!

[9] While I’m glad to see Superman being more overtly heroic in this one this voiceover just highlights the major problem with the first film concerning Jonathan Kent. I can understand the thinking that went into the Kents wanting to protect their son no matter what but to constantly tell him to let other people die just to protect his identity makes them seem like greedy objectivist dicks than the kind and compassionate couple from the comics, TV series, Donner movies, and literally everywhere else but Man of Steel.

[10] Because who doesn’t love Lex Luthor in a wig? Oh well, we’ll probably get a melodramatic scene of Luthor shaving his head before donning his anti-Superman suit in the build up to the finale.

[11] Which may be a bit morbid. I mean I’m sure Alfred’s wanted to clean that thing off for years.

[12] Now wearing his second of three different Batsuits, coming to a Toys R’ Us near you!

[13] Wait, Batman’s parents are dead?

[14] As thrilling as this all is it’s rather jump-cutty and I’d be here all day if I went by frame-by-frame.

[15] In original Batsuit flavor!

[16] But other than some over-seriousness like this and the problems I mentioned earlier the trailer was pretty great, and should have been what they led with instead of the meh one we got out of the gate. I’m never not going to be excited about Batman and Superman in the same movie for the first time so at least it seems like it’ll be insane as opposed to boring. And is there anything worse a superhero movie could be than to be boring?

[17] Did I say less serious? Because I meant way, way, way more serious.

[18] And give credit to DC where it’s due, Viola Davis is going to own the role of Amanda Waller.

[19] Though which superheroes put them in jail I’m not sure on yet.

[20] Even I don’t know much about the Enchantress so you know DC is going for broke with the obscure characters on this one.

[21] Not to reign on your parade Amanda, but it’s far less impressive when getting people to act against their self-interest involves putting a bomb in their skull should they go against orders.

[22] Proving that much like the mythical unicorn there is only one attractive juggalo in the whole world.

[23] Which, by the way isn’t the first time it’s been used in this context. An actually not bad fan series called the Joker Blogs used it as the trailer for its second season. That one involved Harley as well. Check it out.

[24] And thankfully forgoes the ultra-thick Brooklyn accent the character usually has. It works in short doses in animation but would get grating extra-fast from the ostensible main character in a feature film.

[25] Sadly no “Woos” or “Ha Has” as we should come to expect with Will Smith are to be found. Listen, Will Smith is probably going to be the make or break factor in this film. While Harley is sure to be a crowd-pleaser and the Joker will split people no matter what Deadshot is and has always been the second most important member of the squad after Waller. If Smith plays him as the nihilistic world’s greatest assassin with a sarcastic streak he’ll be fine. If he plays him as the caring but conflicted father figure just trying to provide for his daughter we could be in for a slog.

[26] I’m firmly putting this scene in the flashback pile because there’s no way Batman should have a big role in this. I mean there’s no way he should it doesn’t mean that he won’t be a major part of the plot.

[27] MONTAGE!

[28] Say what you will about Courtney’s screen presence in previous films, he certainly has…sideburns in this one.

[29] And those tattoos everyone thought were a prank are definitely in the movie. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

[30] I mean I think Jared Leto is fine as an actor but I still can’t wrap my head around what the Joker is doing in this movie. Is he the villain? Is he a Squad member they have to reluctantly take with them? Is he a Hannibal Lector type informant that breaks out and cause further mayhem? Let’s go with that last one. That one’s the most “Joker”.

[31] With Karen Fukuhara’s Katana suspiciously walking front and center. I’m going to assume she plays a bigger role than most people assume and takes the role of Batman’s inside-woman in the Squad.

[32] So for those who worried that DC is being too grim with their superhero flicks you can at least tell they’re committed with this trailer. Hopefully they don’t flinch and make this PG13 when it clearly deserves to be the black comedy hard-R film superhero movies have been missing in the Marvel Studios age. If you’re going Suicide Squad go full-Suicide Squad is what I’m saying.