“It’s become convoluted corporate destinies,” Miles Millar told me. He and Alfred Gough wrote Spider-Man 2’sstory (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay author Michael Chabon is also credited, with a fraction of his draft making it to the film). “Instead of a compelling movie, something which is complete within itself, other agendas are at play, which makes these movies feel less like movies and more like TV shows or product placement for toys. They’ve literally become not about finding the dramatic core or the emotional stake for the characters.”

So if nerd rage gave us the ability to travel in time and kill the monster that has become these comic book movies, perhaps we’d go back to 1991 and slap the Warner Brothers executive who demanded that there be two villains in Batman Forever. Or maybe we’d go to 2006 and tell Marvel that there’s no way to pump out seven quality movies before unveiling The Avengers. Or maybe we’d just zip into 2016 and tell Zack Snyder to not mess things up.

But alas, superpowers aren’t a real thing and there’s no way to really revisit the days of future past. So here we are, and Batman is so profoundly sad. And he should be. Not only is he going to share the screen with Superman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, Robin, Aquaman, and Cyborg, but Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice sounds less like a film and more like a money-laundering scheme.