Dear Zack,

We’ve never met, but, after watching your latest opus, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” I felt compelled to write you.

I understand that much of your work as a director has involved adapting comic books for the silver screen. Some, like “300” and “Watchmen,” I have enjoyed; others, like “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” I did not. Why didn’t I enjoy those two films? I suspect it’s for the same reasons many others did not enjoy them, namely, they seem to fundamentally misunderstand the central conceits of their main characters. (SPOILERS will follow for most of your films on the off chance you’re not familiar with their plot points – just trying to cover my bases here).

Let’s look at “300” and “Watchmen” for a minute. Those two films succeeded (for me I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that critical and audience opinion was split on both) largely because they were ultimately faithful to their source material. The violence in “300” works because the characters in it are at war; in “Watchmen,” we see a group of superheroes from a darker, parallel world who have a history of killing criminals (Rorschach) and assassinating presidents (the Comedian). The muted colors you favor suited the tone of both stories, and your visuals were nothing short of breathtaking. Although it is impossible to adapt “Watchmen” in anything less than a 12-part Netflix series (You guys should totally get on that), you did as good a job as we are likely to see in our lifetimes, although some of your choices baffled me. (Not sure why you blamed everything on Dr. Manhattan instead of anonymous extraterrestrials – it seemed like an anonymous, inexplicable threat from out of nowhere would more closely mirror our own “War on Terror” and “The Architects of Fear,” the episode of “The Outer Limits” the plan was based on – but I’m sure you had your reasons)

But, in “Man of Steel,” we saw a Superman who barely resembled the character we had known and loved for decades. Whereas 1978’s “Superman: The Movie” saw Clark Kent haunted by his inability to stop the death of his adopted father, your Clark Kent let Jonathan Kent die rather than reveal his powers to a small, rural community distracted by a tornado who had already witnessed him save a bus full of people a few years earlier. The message to young viewers everywhere was clear: their secrets are worth the lives of the people they love. (Note: this is not a good message) We saw a Superman who seemingly enjoyed raking General Zod’s face off of a building full of people while endangering thousands of lives instead of moving the conflict to an uninhabited space, like the Arctic, as he has done countless times in other adaptations. At his core, Superman is a character who wants to help people, and his chief concern is always how to aid the most people in a given situation, something that clearly was not a priority during the film’s climax. And, although he has killed a few times during his 78-year, multiple-universe-spanning history, those incidents are by far the exception, not the rule; to re-introduce him in a film meant to be a springboard into a larger cinematic universe as a killer contrasts sharply with Jor-El’s stated mission in the film, namely, for his only son to guide the human race and give it hope. Instead, Superman himself loses hope and decides to kill Zod in a moment where he could have taken several other courses of action.

In “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” we see a Batman who clearly has no qualms about using guns or taking the life of a criminal, despite a similar 77-year career of refusing to do so outside of a few isolated incidents. In fact, in the source material you pulled much of this movie from, Frank Miller’s seminal “The Dark Knight Returns,” Batman refuses to kill the Joker, even though he had killed Robin years earlier and had just killed hundreds of people, because at heart, he is a person who does not want to see anyone die (a point Mark Waid eloquently made in “Kingdom Come”). The whole point of Batman is that he does not resort to killing even someone as murderous and reprehensible as the Joker because he believes in the value of human life. A friend’s daughter, upon seeing the film, turned to her father and said, “Batman doesn’t use guns.” You know you’re in trouble when an eight-year-old child understands the source material better than the guy directing the multi-billion dollar blockbuster.

And, don’t even get me started on Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, the Doomsday who wandered off the set of “The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey,” and the shoehorned “Death of Superman” storyline you fast-forwarded through. Let’s just both agree you tried something that didn’t work at all and leave it at that.

Before you get all defensive and cite an internet fan video that points out how many people Batman killed in the Nolan films (like you did in an interview with “Hey U Guys”) or point out that billions of people died in “The Force Awakens” (like you did in an interview with “The Wall Street Journal”), let me say that I’m on your side, bra. I think you’re a visually gifted director who could be making spectacular films; I just think your particular skill set was wasted on a character like Superman, who is meant to inspire hope and trust in everyone he meets. Batman should have been a much better fit for you, but you chose to ignore the interesting paradox presented by a man who uses fear as his primary weapon but adamantly refuses to take a life and instead had him kill “by proxy.” Before you jump into production on “Justice League” and ruin it in a similar fashion by having Aquaman sink Western Europe like he did in that one story that one time or something, I have a suggestion for a comic adaptation that will suit your particular need to have your main character murder someone while staying true to the spirit of the source material: you should make a Punisher movie.

Yes, I know it’s been tried before (1989, 2004, and 2008). Yes, I realize the character is currently appearing in the second season of “Daredevil.” (I’ve heard great things but have not had the chance to watch it yet, unfortunately) And, yes, I realize you’d probably break whatever Faustian pact you signed with DC Comics, Warner Brothers and the Prince of Darkness himself to control the DC cinematic universe in doing so, given that the Punisher is a Marvel property. I don’t care. The Punisher, a character who murders criminals in a “one-man war on crime,” is clearly the right character for you.

After all, you’ve done everything possible to turn both Superman and Batman into the Punisher; why not just make a Punisher movie? We’ve never seen a good one, and you can open the film in one of the most senseless, violent conflicts of all time: the Vietnam War. Just imagine all the gleeful, criticism-free murder you can indulge in by bringing the masses the Punisher movie we deserve, which is clearly what you’re trying to give us anyway. You don’t love or understand Superman or Batman in the way you understood the characters in Miller’s “300” and Alan Moore’s “Watchmen;” why not give someone who does (probably half the filmmakers in Hollywood) the chance to give us faithful adaptations we might actually enjoy? Or, God forbid, why don’t you actually create a new property you can do whatever you want with that doesn’t have eight decades of history attached to it for the internet to complain about? You might be surprised with the results.

Your pal,

Tom

P.S. Just make sure it’s not another “Sucker Punch.” We don’t need another one of those.