justissss leagzzzzzz

[Nique]

While DC's characters are conceptually interesting, most of their A list remain thematically boring with little or no meaningful characterization driving them in their most iconic stories. While writers have certainly imbued these characters with clever and well developed traits in certain stories, the fact that their inception was mostly concept/ spectacle provides and inherent barrier in defining the character in anything but the most simplistic terms.

This is part of what makes the transition from comics to film very confusing and messy for DC. This is also influenced by the temptation for filmakers to utilize origin stories almost exclusively when making Superhero films, but Marvel shares that particular hurdle. Marvel's films have prevailed in no small part because their heroes driving traits come from the story and personalities of those characters which are perhaps just as iconic as their powers and appearance.

This is why DC live action films have always been bad to mediocre, and why there are so few of them. The latest Batman installments are, of course, the only exception to this rule. Even the Richard Donnor Superman films, while visually stunning at the time, were pretty cheesy and unsophisticated. Smallville might be the BEST example of Superman, or any DC property aside from Batman, being done as a live action piece.

I realize I'm just kinda ranting and maybe not bringing in a bunch of new thoughts here. I guess what I'm getting at is that Justice League is probably going to suck in every way that Avengers didn't.

[Magus]

I'm holding my opinion on whether Superman can be given a thematically deep and resonant movie until after Man of Steel, but I certainly think you are onto something. Most of the Justice League main members are superhumans, and many of them just sort of two-dimensional--the best example is the Flash, who is fun, but there's not a whole lot there. Wonder Woman also has an interesting backstory, but there's not a whole lot of...vulnerability in it, I guess? On an emotional level.

The reason for backstories is they are the easiest to get to the emotional resonance beneath them, since the backstories almost always include the death of loved ones, the search for meaning and identity, etc. It's beyond that they run into the trouble of actually coming up with something.

I don't think they're incapable of this (comics have shown us that you can have further emotional adventures with these characters beyond their origin story), but the people put in charge of writing these films are always far, far removed from those who have created the stories we care the most about. Paul Dini or Bruce Timm have never been offered the chance to write a live-action DC movie script, I don't believe. You don't see them offering any of the comic books writers who are legends in the industry the chance to even TRY, even on a first draft. It is almost always someone in the film industry who is not known for amazing comic book stories.

I think a movie which did a good job of giving characters meaningful emotional, human vulnerabilities was Justice League: The New Frontier. In this movie, Hal Jordan was a troubled veteran, emotionally scarred from fighting in the Korean War. Martian Manhunter had to deal with attempting to fit into a society that he doesn't understand and find his place in it. The Flash was humanized somewhat to a lesser extent by the government attempting to imprison him and research on him, which was not as good as the emotional arc of Hal Jordan (who I would say is the best of the individual stories within it), but was better than what has usually been done with him.

Another thing it did was pretty much ignore Batman and Superman. They're there, but they've already existed as heroes in the universe of The New Frontier for several years and the movie just presumes we know about them, too, which I think is a smart thing. So they serve mostly just as game pieces in the plot.

Wonder Woman, too, serves as a mere game piece. I would question the overwhelming number of people really knowing her backstory, but on the other hand, the movie goes out of its way to make her backstory unimportant to the current plot--she is just another superpowered plot device within it.

The problem for DC is they just screwed up royally their introduction of Green Lantern. Hal Jordan's story from New Frontier was emotionally moving--nothing like the cruddy characterization given in the Ryan Reynolds movie. So an emphasis on Green Lantern in the Justice League movie will undoubtedly not happen.

This leaves the Flash, Wonder Woman, and, if they use him, Martian Manhunter, as catalysts for meaningful human emotion (assuming we are not going to be forced to get into Batman's head again). And I don't know if they are up to the task.

If DC were willing to ignore their main catalog, there ARE numerous DC heroes more interesting on an emotional level, but they undoubtedly will not do that because they are simultaneously far more obscure.

Also, doing a Justice League movie first means, almost by default (since when would Hollywood do a film like the New Frontier as anything other than direct-to-DVD animation?), spectacle over substance. Doing the Marvel Phase 1 plan backwards is deliberately taking a chance.

The only way I can see it working is if Man of Steel is their "DC Iron Man" and maybe allows Superman as our introduction into this world--maybe Superman will be the new guy on the block in Justice League (an interesting inversion of the usual trope with Superman) and he can be our point-of-view on this big, wide, wacky world of superheroes teaming up. It's a formula which can work and has many times. But is it what they will do? I don't know.

[Aldurin]

I feel the same leeriness about anything DC since their characters are just plain boring, and are often written in ways where their motivation is "I'm good so I'm using my powers" or "I have powers so I'm obligated to use them for good", and what I've seen as blatantly rearranging situations to cockblock the stronger heroes from eclipsing the others (though it's necessary as how can Batman be significant in any capacity if Superman can do it better and almost instantly?) I'd like to see stronger emphasis on the villains though, so that we get to experience more of whatever unique backstory and past drives them to be what they are.

To put it in D&D terms (cheesy, I know):

In the DCverse, the DM threw out balance and restriction, and the players put their emphasis into that with their characters, riding on their powers in order to have identity (even Batman, whose power is basically money and grit). The DM is now stuck trying to purposely fuck with the configuration so that the weaker characters have some spotlight next to the several "I can do everything and I'm doing it right now" characters. And while he does write elaborate villains to try to encourage more development, the characters just regard them as puzzles to be solved using their powers, and it comes out very shallow.

Marvelverse's DM encourages personality over power, and while allowing some level of broken, always puts some reasonable restrictions that the characters react to and struggle with (exception: Deadpool, which is fine since his personality regulates how much significant involvement he does compared to others). Thus, the characters have their own growth in either rising to their power or coming to terms with it. Any struggle is on the personality level, their powers serving to enhance the experience as despite their advantages, they still face problems. The villains are fine, too, though many are made to be specific foils to characters or to antagonize weak points of their personalities (note: terming villains is somewhat difficult here as there is a far stronger population in the gray area whose side is often dynamic).

Basically, given how DC writes, they're far better off focusing on their villains, as the quality disparity between the two companies' heroes is pretty bad, and their villains compete with, if not outshine, Marvel's in various capacities.

[Gregness]

I don't really read print comics, so 90% of my exposure to DC heroes is from the DCAU and Dini and those guys were very successful (for me, at least)at making the justice league members not-boring. I think for a justice league movie proper, the cadmus storyline has the most potential for engaging a general audience.

Bits like this are particularly good.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Aldurin

I feel the same leeriness about anything DC since their characters are just plain boring

That's not even a little bit true. It's just that most people think they're more boring because they haven't been properly exposed to the modern interpretations of the characters, because why would anyone bother with that? Superfriends taught us all that these characters are boring, so why read or watch any of their stories since clearly the way these heroes have been presented hasn't changed at all since their inception? And around and around it goes.

And since the movies are marketed toward the general audience that is completely unfamiliar with the characters beyond the most basic of iconic knowledge and Warner Bros hires writers with no experience or exposure to them to pen the scripts, that notion continues to remain unchanged. Marvel, meanwhile, took the initiative to create their own studio where they could be sure that their characters would be presented as accurately as possible by writers and directors that they had confidence would do the job right.

DC's problem isn't their characters. It's that DC is unwilling to make the effort to change how their characters are perceived, and that's even worse.

[Nique]

The solution is, of course, to tell good stories. It would simply be easier to tell relatively good stories if the characterizing motivations of those superheroes were a more consistent part of their iconography #superheroes101 #classisnowinsession

[Nique]

Batman: the most non-DC DC hero.

Still indistinguishable from Superman.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Nique

The solution is, of course, to tell good stories.

Still waiting on either DC or Marvel to start doing that in their comics.

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

DC's problem isn't their characters. It's that DC is unwilling to make the effort to change how their characters are perceived, and that's even worse.

They've allowed people to think "lol aquaman is lame" and"lol batman/robin pedo" jokes are actually funny or clever for how many decades now?
People enjoyed Captain America, they should be able to watch and enjoy a Superman movie.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Premmy

People enjoyed Captain America, they should be able to watch and enjoy a Superman movie.

But Marvel's heroes are more interesting than DC's because Robert Downey Jr. played himself in the Iron Man movies and I've never read a Green Lantern comic.