Wonder Woman is one of the bright spots of Justice League. Even with all of the gloom and doom surrounding the disastrous box office performance of what was meant to be Warner Bros.' crown jewel DC superhero team up, and the growing demand to see Zack Snyder's completed director's cut, Justice League does have its virtues. Chief among them is Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).By the end of Justice League, Diana Prince is not just one of the public faces of the new super team defending the world, but has also replaced Batman as the League's leader. This neatly completes Diana's macro arc in the DCEU from sheltered but courageous Amazon, to war hero, to recluse for nearly a century, to her reemergence as a superhero and now embracing a public identity as Wonder Woman.
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Though fans met Diana Prince in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice while she was in the middle of her journey, Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman did the yeoman's work establishing who Diana is and how she came to be. The only child born on Themyscira, Diana was kept unaware by her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) that she was not only the daughter of Zeus but she was also the fabled Godkiller destined to kill Ares (David Thewlis). Diana was meant for greater things than remaining on Paradise Island; she was meant to save and protect the whole world, though it took her decades to fully embrace her ultimate mission.
First, Diana had to learn that humanity is neither purely good nor purely bad, as her volumes of ancient texts led her to believe. When she joined Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) to fight in World War I, she naively argued that the flaws in humanity aren't inherent but the direct cause of Ares' influence. Her experience in the Great War was a coming of age for Diana. By killing Ares, she entered the full bloom of her godly powers, but it came at a tragic cost. She watched Steve make a heroic sacrifice to help end the war. He was a spy who died a hero; more importantly, despite his flaws, he was a good man that Diana got to spend too short a time with. Losing Steve affected Diana so deeply that she decided to remain in the shadows for the better part of the 20th century.
Someone who knows all about remaining in the shadows is the Batman (Ben Affleck), the second person who got a sense that this beautiful but guarded art dealer from the Louvre is more than she seemed to be. The first was Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who acquired a 1918 photo of Diana and her World War I friends taken in Veld, Belgium after their first victory in World War I. Diana was one of four metahumans Luthor had begun keeping files on, but it was Batman who was able to form a tenuous connection with Diana, albeit by having the files he stole from Luthor swiped (then returned) by Diana.
Diana reemerged as Wonder Woman to stand alongside Batman and Superman (Henry Cavill) against Doomsday, but after Superman died destroying the monster, Diana walked away from Batman's hopes that they find others like them and form a team to stop the alien invasion to come. Diana still wasn't ready to embrace being Wonder Woman and step into the light. However, Bruce Wayne wouldn't give up; he knew with Superman gone he desperately needed Diana. The modern day framing sequences of Wonder Woman saw Bruce send Diana a present: the original copy of the 1918 photo. He hoped this would stir the hero inside Diana to once again become Wonder Woman. It was a bit manipulative (as is Batman's way), but pushing Diana's Steve Trevor button worked. By the end of Wonder Woman, Diana reaffirmed her commitment to protecting the world as its hero.
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When Batman began assembling the Justice League to fight Steppenwolf's Parademon invasion, the first person he naturally reached out to was Diana. She was already made aware that the invasion was imminent thanks to the Amazons, who lit the Flame of Athena to inform her they had lost their Mother Box to Steppenwolf. Though Diana's role in recruitment was to bring Cyborg (Ray Fisher) into the League, Batman really had grander plans for her: he wanted Wonder Woman to lead the Justice League.
Batman seemed set up to be the League's leader; he's the driving force for the heroes coming together, after all. But he was actively bowing out of command all along. Beyond having no actual superpowers, Batman knows he's weariest of the heroes - he even confessed to Diana privately that he's so beat up after 20 years of crime-fighting that can barely be Batman now. He is also most effective operating in the shadows of night; the Justice League would eventually be a publicly known entity and the Batman can't take center stage in that kind of spotlight. Most importantly, Batman knows he's not made to lead the League. He's too compromised morally and ethically. The leader of the team should be the purest hero, not to mention someone with centuries of life experience.
This isn't unlike how Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) happy ceded leadership of the Avengers to Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). Among the many ways Justice League tried to model itself after The Avengers, Batman wanted to be the rich guy in the background who pays for everything and makes everything "look cool", like Stark admitted he was in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Stark, like Batman, knew he wasn't the guy to be front and center making the tough calls - it should be the more experienced veteran of a World War who is also pure of heart. Even moreso than the resurrected Superman, Batman knew Wonder Woman should lead the Justice League.
This was a responsibility Diana demurred from. She didn't want to be front and center to make the tough calls that might lead to her friends dying. Batman decided to push her Steve Trevor buttons again, this time cruelly. In front of the League, he demanded to know why he'd never heard of her before the fight with Doomsday and accused her of "not moving on" and using her "dead boyfriend" as an excuse to hide from the world for a hundred years. To her credit, Diana looked beyond Batman's mean-spirited bluntness and acknowledged he had a point.
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When the time came to face Steppenwolf in Russia - while Batman was on a destructive rampage against the Parademons in his Batmobile - Wonder Woman took charge and led the League against Steppenwolf. When Superman joined the battle, it was Superman and Wonder Woman together who humbled Steppenwolf - his Freeze Breath weakened Steppenwolf's battleaxe so Wonder Woman could destroy it with her sword. Steppenwolf was so shaken by fear of the League, the Parademons turned on him and the aliens all Boom Tubed away. The Earth was saved.
It's telling that at the conclusion of Justice League, it was Diana and only Diana who Bruce invited to tour the ruins of Wayne Manor and present his plans to construct a headquarters for the team in its place. It's even more telling that when Bruce announced that he wanted a big round table in the middle of the hall with seating for six, Diana corrected "But with room for more." She is looking ahead to what the Justice League could be, and that no doubt includes Wonder Woman not being the only female superhero on the team. Bruce agreed that there would be room for more because the team's leader had spoken.
In the real world sense, Wonder Woman is rightfully the Justice League's leader based on her solo film being the most acclaimed and the only unqualified DCEU film success. While the characters of Batman and Superman are universally popular, the incarnations portrayed by Ben Affleck (who is probably done playing the Dark Knight anyway) and Henry Cavill (who reportedly only has one more obligation to portray the Man of Steel) have been divisive. Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman was embraced as the definitive live action version of the Amazing Amazon, and she has never divided or disappointed fans in any of her DCEU appearances.
In Justice League, Wonder Woman held the team together, provided the unshakable heroic core of the film, and regardless of how fans felt about the film's quality, emerged from Justice League unscathed and as heroic as ever. Wonder Woman 2 is the most anticipated DCEU film on the horizon, and it currently carries the greatest hopes for the franchise's future. If there is a Justice League 2, Wonder Woman is going to be the hero who will hold that sequel together as well. She is both the leader the Justice League deserves and the one it truly needs.