Going to shunt this into this thread:
That was maybe the most nerd infuriating part of that whole "was Thanos right?" horseshit wankery. Really, we need to have more contempt for "Marvel fans" and self-proclaimed nerds in general praising how they scraped out the entire thematic core of the Infinity Gauntlet (and Thanos personally) for objectively stupid Malthusianism and low level Star Trek tier time travel nonsense. One of the saving graces of Snyder getting fired was he wasn't able to use lame ass time travel in a story with reality shaping powers like he also planned.
Then all these dummies tried to talk us into their multiverse horseshit as the next great storytelling frontier and how much "fun" we're supposed to be having with a multiverse where everyone alive had a traumatic five year time separation and each new "adventure" is about escalating existential cosmic horrors none of the writers have solutions for. Something which everyone completely ignores until somebody steps slightly out of formula in a non-superficial way and our "fans" tut-tut them for making things "too bleak" and "losing the fun and heroics" as Gunn is currently getting.
And then there's the unrelenting inconsistent reality of these "shared universes" that exist only as the main characters (of the moment) move through them. And while I'm on it another thing is how... 
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Unironically, reflecting on the last 80 of these movies in the past decade, come away thinking Zod in MoS is the best realized villain. How he’s by design, in text and in universe, one dimensional. How that single track purpose born from a eugenics forward culture feeds into every action he makes. How when he fails that purpose, he’s basically going for suicide by cop while causing as much despair to everyone else. Makes me wonder what Darkseid could’ve been. What I understand, the direction was inline with Grant Morrison’s take. With Darkseid being this manifestation of evil, a force of nature, one track in his own way. It’s an interesting contrast with the other villains, who have relatively relatable motivations, to see someone that’s unambiguously and unashamedly evil. Oh, you’re saying I should shove myself into the locker? Sure thing.
The villains in these movies have been trash, worse than anything done to any of the heroes in any of them. It's pretty much aside from minor exceptions been downhill since Jeff Bridges was yelling about Tony Stark's box of scraps in a cave.
For all the criticism of how Snyder didn't get this or that character, I think he was starting to "get" Darkseid as what he was truly looking for out of the DC superhero canon back to Watchmen. The fear Batman has of Superman in BvS, it's the fear Luthor has of Darkseid (though the movie gives the impression he's afraid of Superman the ending reveals he's not, he had multiple solutions for that problem which he hoped would take care of the larger one), it's the fear the Zod/Superman fight showcased for the in-world characters, it's in the tinged language throughout Justice League (though I think Snyder took the wrong track in stripping the gallows humor he shot from his own cut), it's even in the treatment of Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias's slightly more complex dumber plan against him, etc. Everybody picked up on the Superman (and the rest of the Justice League) as a god trope Snyder ran with, but in Darkseid and "getting" the potential use of the character in the premise he had Snyder had found his real Bad God to sell that "actually, superheroes in the real world would totally fucking suck" aspect. Though I doubt he could have pulled it off (he botched nearly every similar scope theme in BvS, the high batting average of JL almost assuredly came from having four years to sit on it and ponder) the idea of not having Superman (or Diana, Arthur, J'onn, any Lanterns, etc. "No protectors here, no Lanterns, no Kryptonian" was such a brilliant canon-steeped single line to straight away convey the
threat even if we want to give the credit to Terrio) when Darkseid comes for Anti-Life is a pretty compelling one for a Justice League capstone. Which is partly why The Flash going back in time to convince Batfleck to sacrifice himself instead of Lois is so fucking stupid as a solution. (It's arguably far worse as a character arc conclusion.) You don't strip the Justice League of their gods and ask how they defeat a god then turn to the one god they have left so he can ask their lone human to sacrifice himself to prevent the whole thing before it happens lmao
The problem for Warner Bros. definitely would have been how it's a terrible way to
start a DC Universe film franchise, especially continuously invoking the
fear of all your main characters unchecked powers just so they can fail when confronted with an ultimate absolute power that has no such morals.
Ironically, we're basically getting a version of this in The Flash movie with Zod coming to a world with no heroes but Michael Keaton then "deus ex machina" rebooting into a new DC Universe. I always thought this was maybe the only real honest way you could do a reboot when you reached a point of no return and already knew you wanted to replace all the actors. It's a shame they didn't really know this when they were shooting so Zod could go ham in Metropolis again instead of a desert. Zaslav should have called back Snyder to say "here's some millions, storyboard something to let them know what you think about the criticism of Man of Steel's fight and we'll CGI it up" as Ezra, Keaton and Supergirl get shredded by Zod before Barry hits the reboot button.
