Justice League’s top 7 hilarious and heartfelt moments

JUSTICE LEAGUE – Official Heroes Trailer – Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Wonder Woman’s Steve Trevor monologue

Aside from being a genuinely great character moment, I liked this speech because it proposed a genuinely plausible reason why Wonder Woman isn’t the one leading the Justice League in the DCU. She was raised to be a leader for most of her life, is the most level-headed and compassionate member of the team, and is also, you know, a literal demigoddess. The idea that anyone would make a better leader than her is a bit laughable.

But in this quiet scene with Bruce Wayne (which didn’t turn overtly romantic, thank Hestia) Diana reveals that she’s been dealing with the reverberations of Steve Trevor’s death for the past century.

Wonder Woman’s compassion is what makes her such a powerful character as well as a powerful crime-fighter, but compassion is a double-edged sword. Its literal definition is “to suffer together”. It drives Diana to do good whenever she can, but it also makes her vulnerable to the memory of those she couldn’t save.

One of the obstacles any ensemble movie faces is working in each character’s backstory without it feeling like an info dump. This was a great moment in Justice League because it neatly sums up why Diana has avoided stepping into the limelight during her century of fighting crime, choosing to remain little more than a myth rather than the legend she could so easily become.

Justice League makes it clear that Diana has yet to overcome her guilt and grief over the loss of the first man she loved. She feels she can’t lead the team because she can’t ask people to die for a cause again. It was a very human and poignant moment, in which Bruce got a chance to show a little compassion as well.