New Justice League trailer promises brighter future for DCEU

We got a four-minute look at Justice League on Saturday as the new trailer premiered to a packed Hall H at Warner Bros. Pictures’ 2017 San Diego Comic-Con panel.

While what we saw in the new Justice League trailer on Saturday wasn’t a lot, it was enough to reassure audiences, at least for now, that Warner Bros. appears to have course-corrected from its early mistakes in guiding the DCEU into existence.

To say that the DCEU got off to a shaky start is an understatement.

The groundwork laid by Man of Steel in 2013 was threatened by the critical and commercial missteps of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad in 2016.

But 2017’s Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, helped right the ship, receiving glowing reviews as it continues to break box-office records. It is now the highest-grossing movie to be directed by a woman—and it will be getting a sequel, as announced at Comic-Con on Saturday

However, Justice League, like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, was helmed by Zack Snyder. Though he stepped away in May following a family tragedy and was replaced with Joss Whedon, filming was already complete, so fears that Justice League could suffer from the same problems that plagued those films—bleak in tone, bloated in execution—remain justified.

But judging from the four some odd minutes of Justice League that premiered Saturday, many of those problems appear to have been addressed.

While there’s no way of knowing how much of the overall tone of Justice League skews toward levity, there was plenty of it in the SDCC trailer.

To be sure, the DCEU is not a happy place. It should not be as glossy as the MCU. But it doesn’t need to be painfully dark.

This trailer felt notably lighter both tonally and visually, and that is likely due to Whedon’s influence.

There is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), dodging bullets and taking down baddies who appear to be robbing the museum where she works (her “day job”).

Cut to:

“What did you do this weekend, Diana?” Diana Prince’s colleague asks her as she dusts off a statue.

“Me?” Diana replies lazily. “Nothing very interesting.”

There’s more where that came from, with one-liners delivered mostly by The Flash (Ezra Miller), whose wit is as quick as his moves.

But the main focus of the trailer is to set up the impending clash between the Justice League, spearheaded by Wonder Woman and Batman (Ben Affleck), with Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and The Flash, and Big Bad Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), one of Darkseid’s elite generals.

As set up in Wonder Woman, Darkseid intends to invade Earth, possibly in search of the Anti-Life equation (the Justice League trailers so far have not confirmed this). And it appears Steppenwolf will help him do his bidding.

But the most important part of the trailer comes in its final seconds.

It’s unlikely, TBH, that Wonder Woman, Batman, & co. could defeat Darkseid on their own, without the help of the Man of Steel himself.

But he’s dead, right?

Of course not.

While we still don’t know exactly how Superman will return, the SDCC trailer all but confirms he will.

“He said you’d come,” Alfred (Jeremy Irons) says to someone standing out of the frame in the final scene.

“Now let’s hope you’re not too late.”

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He’s back, y’all.