Batman is the most interesting DC character because he's human. He gets tested and he sometimes fails those tests. The Nolan films leaned into that- Wayne manor burned down, his girlfriend gets killed in the second one, and he got his ### kicked in the third. He has rules but sometimes he has to break them. Like don't bang any super villains. Ok, one. But just the one. And joker telling him he will have to break his one rule.
But the main thing is that with batman there's natural conflict. There are so many recognizable and interesting super villains in the batman universe, and they can "win" without batman dying. They all want him unmasked. They ####### destroy that poor city over and over. Ras al ghul knows who he is but tried to recruit him. The villains threaten people close to him.
It's much different from marvel because they really can't make him funny. It's completely out of character unless you want Adam West/Michael Keaton Batman. But Nolan did an awesome job getting Alfred to put in lines that were funny without being sarcastic. RDJ Iron man pretty much lives on sarcasm, and Thor and the GotG did too. Captain America was more serious but they still gave him lines like i understood that reference and America's ###.
Then there's superman. There's nothing fun about him. He is stronger and better than everyone. He had an interesting origin story but it's done to death. Zod was interesting because they were ostensibly equals or he was even outmatched. Let Luther, more kryptonite, some random alien bad guy, batman, darkseid... all boring unless they build it up.
Marvel had that problem too, they had an alien army that invaded and then Hawkeye was killing them with arrows and you're like oh cool they're pretty much unstoppable. But then they built up Thanos over multiple movies and didn't even show him until later, and the first time they met him individually they got trounced. The first time they fought him as a team, they still got trounced. And they built up the consequences of losing for an hour of endgame. By the end you didn't know how they could win and even though they built it up to the point where you knew they had to win... they had consequences. Real, permanent consequences.
Superman meets someone, fights them, oh no kryptonite... ok I got away from the kryptonite... and then he wins. It will always be ####ty until they find a way to make me believe he can lose. The comics supposedly did that, maybe someone smart could build a franchise around multiple movies, but justice league didn't accomplish that. It was another one off story that sucked. Oh a slightly more powerful bad guy who they will still beat and get it tied up by the end of the movie. Neat. I've seen that before. Oh cool an origin story and they get together to work together. Again, seen it.
If they want to fix dc they need to capitalize while Gal Godot is still young enough to wear that outfit, lean into aquaman as their most charismatic hero, lean into the bat villains because they don't have a current batman that anybody really cares about, and find a way to neuter superman without it being the same old kryptonite story.
Intelligent aliens open up an underwater portal to earth, and begin to overrun Atlantis. Some Amazonians try to fight them and get trounced. Superman appears to die. The world leaders surrender. Earth is lost. The aliens have come here for some Big Secret Thing that only earth has and we take for granted. Maybe it's our oceans. Maybe something cool like the infinity stones. Regardless they're here and they're taking it and they're winning and we're all ####ed. The justice league forms. They have to close off the portal. Aquaman has to lead them. It's not that easy because the aliens know he's coming. Wonder woman lassos the truth out of one of them. They find a way to revive superman. Again. But he's still weak and can't fight them one on one. He has to use his other powers and his intellect. They close off the portal eventually but superman is left permanently weakened. And the aliens are a long way away but now they know the Big Secret of why they have to come back to earth. To be continued. That's the formula. We know who the good guys are... give me origin stories for the bad guys.