DCEU Memes That Will Split Your Sides

While it was a rocky start, the DCEU is now officially underway and looking strong. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman have all gotten time in the spotlight, the Justice League has assembled, and the other individual heroes are all beginning their solo franchises. It's definitely safe to say that the DCEU is prominent in the public eye, and fans are scrutinizing every detail of the movies. This has led to a lot of debate about storylines and motivations, but it has also led to a lot of funny memes.

Just because memes are funny does not mean that these jokes are all at the DCEU's expense, though. It's possible to laugh at something while still enjoying it. In fact, your best odds of getting the punchline of these jokes are if you are a big DCEU fan. So, whether you're critical of DC's films so far, or you think they have been great, we can all get a chuckle out of these 20 Hilarious DCEU Memes That Will Split Your Sides.

20 SAY THE MAGIC WORD

Whether you enjoyed Batman v. Superman or hated it, the moment that received almost unanimous ridicule was the resolution of the fight between DC's two icons. Batman powered himself with a new Batsuit specially designed for the battle against a Superman depowered by Kryptonite. Bruce had Clark down for the kill. Then, as Batman raised a Kryptonite spear up for the finishing blow, the thing that stayed his hand was his and Superman's moms having the same name.

Yeah, it was meant to show how Batman finally viewed Superman as a person rather than a monster, but it was also anticlimactic and a really silly end to the fight. Since then, fans have made fun of the moment a lot, including using the movie that beat out Batman v. Superman at the box office: Captain America: Civil War. One good thing Civil War had going for it besides bringing in Spider-Man and Black Panther? The fight didn't end because any of the heroes had moms with the same name.

19 BRUCE WAYNE OVERLOOKING A GOOD THING

Lots of people have commented on how a guy who dresses up like a bat must have some pretty serious psychological issues. Bruce Wayne is clearly scarred from his childhood thanks to the loss of his parents as well as his fear of bats. But rather than go to therapy to overcome these traumatic experiences, instead he decided to dress up like a bat and take out his frustration on the criminals of Gotham.

Who knows how well this meme will age, but as of this writing, the template is all the rage, so a lot of people have seen the Batman variation of it. They say explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog, where you might understand it better, but you simultaneously kill it. Still, part of what's funny about this meme is that the jealous girlfriend usually represents something good the person has but isn't appreciating at the moment. However, in Batman's case that girlfriend probably shouldn't even be there since he's never even given therapy a chance.

18 HOW MARVEL AND DC HANDLE HIDDEN IDENTITIES

One of the funniest and most illogical things about someone like Superman is that so few people know who he is, despite him not even wearing a mask. Clark just puts on a pair of glasses to work as a journalist and all of a sudden nobody can recognize that he is the guy flying through the sky. And apparently, the same is now true of Wonder Woman in the DCEU, who has people fooled by her alias Diana Prince just by putting on some business attire.

With how blind people in the comic world are, you have to laugh at how, over at Marvel, so many characters wear full coverage masks to conceal their identities. And yet, even despite that precaution, a lot of the heroes are already known thanks to revealing their identities on their own. Tony Stark straight up announced he was Iron Man at a press conference. But apparently, if Tony ever wants to go back into hiding, he can just start wearing glasses to go incognito again.

17 AQUAMAN UPGRADES HIS RIDE

Unless you are totally unfamiliar with Aquaman, you know he is the butt of a lot of jokes. People without much exposure to Arthur hear that Aquaman has powers like being able to communicate with fish and they are not that impressed. Of all the Justice League characters, Aquaman definitely has the hardest time getting people to think that he is cool. So, the Justice League movie seems to be trying to remedy this issue.

On the left above, you can see what would no doubt be many people's expectation of how Aquaman gets himself around. But the Justice League trailers are trying to teach people that there is a lot more to Arthur than just fish. We see him getting in Bruce Wayne's face, chugging some booze, and riding on the hood of the Batmobile. The message is clear: stop assuming Aquaman can just interact with fish!

16 SUICIDE SQUAD HAS SOMETHING BETTER

With how much backlash Suicide Squad received for its perceived problems with tonal consistency among other things, it's fair to say that no one was expecting the movie to get any nominations come award season. And yet, come the Oscars for 2016's films, Suicide Squad actually not only got nominated, it actually won. Obviously it didn't win in one of the major categories, but it did get the award for Best Makeup for that year.

As much as Marvel has dominated at the box office and gotten rave reviews for the MCU films, it has not really gotten much recognition come award season. In 2016 in particular, Marvel objectively fared better in its earnings and criticisms than DC did. And yet, one of DC's films still beat out Marvel in the prestige department. So it's pretty amusing how something like the Avengers is still looked back upon fondly, and yet Suicide Squad left more of a mark in its accolades.

15 BEN AFFLECK’S RESPONSE TO “KILL THE BATMAN”

One of the biggest things that shocked fans after watching Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was that Batman openly violated his rule against killing. He guns people down in the Batmobile, stabs criminals, and even blows them up with grenades. Bruce kills more in the infamous warehouse scene than in all of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. So, clearly the DCEU Batman has no qualms about ending his enemy's life.

It makes it funny to go back to Nolan's take on the Dark Knight and see all the havoc the Joker wreaks. The Joker has only thrived for so long because Batman refuses to violate his rule about killing. But if any villain ever encountered Ben Affleck's Batman, they wouldn't be a nuisance for long. The DCEU Batman will break his rule against killing without a worry, so the villains better get out of town.

14 WHAT DID WONDER WOMAN DO WITH THE OWNER OF THE DRESS?

The big party scene in the tail end of Wonder Woman was a pretty memorable scene. After sneaking into the party Diana finally had her chance to confront who she thought Ares was, and her battle with the God of War followed shortly afterwards. Of course, it's easy to get so distracted by all the action that soon followed that you could overlook a pretty unusual detail; that is, that Wonder Woman probably just left some woman naked in the woods in order to acquire her dress.

It's a pretty common movie moment where a protagonist steals someone's duds to gain access to an exclusive meeting. We never actually see the woman in question afterwards, but presumably after Diana stole this stranger's dress, she just left the woman naked in the woods in the middle of winter. But Diana did end a world war, so the woman can at least be grateful for that once she recovered from her pneumonia.

13 BVS ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE VS LEGO BATMAN’S

After the beating Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice took on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, a lot of fans jumped to the explanation that reviewers are just anti-DC movies. Man of Steel had already been divisive among viewers, but a good amount of people enjoyed it, so they couldn't understand why the reviews were being so harsh. But the theory that reviewers don't like DC kind of went out the window after the Lego Batman movie.

There is no arguing that the team behind Batman v. Superman wishes they could have had the rave ratings that Lego Batman did. Critics loved how this movie that should have been nothing more than a glorified Lego commercial was actually written with a lot of wit and humor. And poor Ben Affleck can only grouse that an animated version of his character pleased many critics more than he did.

12 AT LEAST HE KILLED DOOMSDAY

Superheroes obviously live pretty dangerous lives, so it's not that surprising that they do tend to have a high mortality rate. Even someone like Superman, who is impervious to many of the threats that would kill ordinary humans, has his weaknesses. But going into a fight against somebody like Batman, you would necessarily think Superman should be the odds on favorite. Batman doesn't even have any powers, but he is Batman, and for whatever reason, he always wins.

While Batman didn't kill Superman, he did technically defeat him. Superman's promise of victory falling short was bad enough, but then he was defeated a second time in the same movie, this time getting killed by Doomsday. For someone who was so confident just a day prior, Superman actually had a pretty bad showing when it came time to prove himself in battle.

11 EVERYONE GETS A MUSTACHE

Warner Bros. really wants Justice League to be a hit as a movie, so they're not taking any chances. Part of this includes bringing some of the cast in for reshoots after their work was already considered done. The problem is actors often need to change their looks for other roles, like in the case of Henry Cavill for Mission Impossible 6. Cavill's character has a mustache in the film, and couldn't shave it until he was done with the filming. So when he was called back to do reshoots for Justice League, he had to keep the mustache.

WB is getting around this problem by digitally removing the mustache, but it's been a big source of amusement to fans. Lots of memes have gone back and added mustaches to Superman in pivotal scenes from the prior movies. The meme above takes it a step further, asking what if all the Justice League actors actually had mustaches during filming that were just digitally removed. It's especially funny when someone like Aquaman already had one, and then someone like Wonder Woman would obviously never grow one.

10 NO MAN COULD KILL IT

One of DC's biggest enemies in its success has been Rotten Tomatoes. We're not saying there's any agenda or conspiracy among reviewers to trash DC, but the fact is DC has had an extremely tough time getting a good critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Some fans have become so jaded by this that they pretty much expected every DC movie to receive negative feedback. But then Wonder Woman came along and broke that streak.

Fully appreciating this joke requires some Lord of the Rings knowledge, but the basic point is clear: the Witch King was a villain feared across Middle Earth, and no man could beat him. The Witch King's word choice became prophetic when the female warrior Eowyn declared that she could indeed slay him since she was no man. Obviously, Patty Jenkins wasn't saving the world with Wonder Woman's success, but she did help save the DCEU and slay the negative streak over at Rotten Tomatoes.

9 HOW WONDER WOMAN HID HER SWORD

While the visual of Wonder Woman waking into a fancy party with a sword hanging down her back so she's still ready for battle is cool, it is also pretty impractical. For one, you have to wonder how nobody there noticed it when it's so obviously visible to the viewers. Even besides that, how did Wonder Woman even do anything with such a huge weapon hanging down her back for all that time?

The drawing above further demonstrates how bizarre the scene is when you stop to think about it. The sword would have been so long that it would have posed a danger by either tearing through her dress, or even slicing herself. But the creator of the above drawing shared a theory of how Diana avoided those problems, finding a sheath on her body to hold the sword in place.

8 DC’S SUPERMAN VS MARVEL’S SUPERMAN

One of the most common things pointed out about the difference between the DCEU and the MCU is the tone of each universe. The MCU made it clear early on that it was aiming to make its heroes fun. Whether you're seeing movies with Iron Man, Spider-Man, or even Thor, you're going to see a lot of one liners mixed in with the action.

In contrast, the DCEU's movies have tackled darker storylines that some say are meant for older audiences. For MCU fans, the DC movies are trying too hard to be dark. But for DC fans, Marvel is shoehorning fun into dramatic stories. Above, we see one interpretation of how Marvel would handle Superman, making him more fun with some balloons on a sunny day. Of course, most movie goers can agree that both universes have their own strengths.

7 JARED LETO CROSSES THE LINE

As Suicide Squad was gearing up to hit theaters, one of the big focal points was on Jared Leto's method acting. To get into playing the character of the Joker, Leto believed it was necessary to do bizarre things on set. This entailed things like sending people condoms or animal carcasses, and only responding to being called Mister J. Some fans found this whole technique silly and pretentious, and the meme above encapsulates that attitude pretty well.

Replacing sugar with salt isn't some crazy scheme that only someone like the Joker could conjure. In fact it's a pretty common prank among elementary school students. So the fact that Leto thought this was something outrageous kind of lends credence to some people's belief that Leto didn't really have the best handle on what makes the Joker special. Then again, it is funny to picture Leto doing this and thinking it was such a crazy thing to do.

6 YOU CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE FLASH

Though we have not seen it yet in the DCEU, one of the most useful abilities the Flash has is his ability to time travel and avert bad events. It's not something he uses often since there is the whole issue with the butterfly effect and how you never know what you might change through doing something seemingly innocuous. But when something horrible is happening in the world, the Flash risks it and goes back to undo whatever terrible thing has befallen it.

One bad thing this world does not need is another awful iteration of Catwoman. After how bad the Halle Berry version of the character was, we'd all like to avoid anything even close to that again. So nothing against J-Lo, but unless she has some extraordinary acting ability that she's been hiding from everyone all these years, her being cast as Catwoman is something we would all rather avoid.

5 DO YOU BLEED?

The scene that really cemented that Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was trying to go with a darker tone was the one that closed the first trailer: Batman's confrontation with Superman. Rationally thinking, it's pretty silly to wonder if a humanoid alien like Superman would bleed since by all appearances he has the same physiology as us. But it was a cool sounding line, so it worked fine for getting people intrigued about the impending fight. Some people couldn't help wondering what would have happened if Batman had initially encountered Wonder Woman instead, though, since she is such a similar counterpart to Superman.

For one thing, Wonder Woman would have had a pretty obvious response to Batman's inquiry about bleeding. Diana might be an Amazon, but she's still a woman, after all. So it's probably a good thing Bruce didn't encounter Diana before Clark. It helped him avoid encountering an awkward menstrual cycle joke, plus he didn't have to fight someone who would have been invulnerable to Kryptonite and would have handled him a lot more easily.

4 NEEDS MORE FUN

If you were watching the trailers for Suicide Squad since the first one, you probably noticed that the tone of them began shifting pretty dramatically. The first trailer was dark and ominous, something that some fans enjoyed. Others felt it was trying too hard. In fact, criticism about DC's movies being too dark actually led to the studio wanting to do something to try and avoid the kind of backlash Batman v. Superman got. The solution? Make Suicide Squad more fun.

Before Suicide Squad was released, it was reedited to throw in more jokes and a lighter tone, likely in an attempt to mimic what worked for Marvel. The trailers reflected this as well, abandoning their former dark tone and throwing in one liners and catchy pop songs by Queen. Every new trailer that we got for the movie was looking so thematically different that you couldn't help but wonder how far the studio was going to go with throwing in more colors and pop culture references.

3 IT’S ALL UNDER CONTROL

The world of memes moves pretty quick, so this one is obviously pretty beaten into the ground by now. But remember, this meme grew popular around the same time Batman v. Superman was coming out, so it was quite timely at the moment. The message of the meme definitely fit with the end goal of Dawn of Justice, which was for Batman and Superman to overcome their animosity so they can unite against a bigger threat.

If you forget what this meme means, or just enjoy throwback jokes, this comes from Jurassic World where Chris Pratt's character was able to communicate with a group of raptors. He steps between the dinosaurs to calm them down and assert his control over them, but people found the moment so humorous that they put Pratt in all kinds of bizarre situations. Though if Pratt's character had actually tried stopping these superheroes, he would have wound up dead quicker than a human who becomes T-Rex chow.

2 THE WRONG SLIPKNOT

If you didn't know who Slipknot was before Suicide Squad, that's not something you need to beat yourself up over. Seeing as how he got killed off before you could even care about him, and his big skill was climbing stuff, he doesn't leave a lasting impression. In fact, when he was announced as part of the team before the film came out, people quickly speculated he would be the first to die.

Given all of that, there are probably quite a few people who were picturing a different Slipknot when they first heard the villain's name. The members of the metal band might look like they could be supervillains with their creepy looking masks, but DC's Slipknot isn't quite that cool looking. So if you had your Slipknots confused before seeing Suicide Squad, just remember DC's is the one that literally only had about 15 minutes of fame.

1 THE LONG-AWAITED SEQUEL

Once Jared Leto's Joker was officially unveiled, criticism came in pretty swiftly. Fans found the tattoos out of place and juvenile, the grills on his teeth some weird gangsta accessory, and Leto's method acting as overboard. This was the moment where people began having some serious doubts about Suicide Squad; even now in hindsight, Leto's performance is one of the most criticized aspects of the film.

The jokes were quick to follow, and some could not help but observe the similarity in Leto's first released image as the Joker and Kevin McCallister. The famous image from Home Alone is of Kevin staring at the camera and screaming in terror, so Leto's picture was almost a spitting image of that. You have to admit, the Joker really doesn't look that out of place on the cover of Home Alone 2.

Did you see any DCEU memes that cut deep? Let us know in the comments!