Spoilers Justice League - Grading and Discussion

The general public doesn't read comics at all.

 

If you say so.

 

General public asked about their opinion on Jack Kirby: "Who?"

 

No doubt. But "only hardcore comic nerds" ? Ask just about any comic creator about the impact and influence of Jack Kirby, and you'll realize that the the genre as it exists today owes as much or more to him as it does to Stan Lee, Siegel and Shuster, Kane, Finger and Robinson, or any other name you would care to bring up.

 

Of course! But "the genre as it exists" is a problem the comic book industry have been battling since they realized its a problem in the '90s.

 

That stopped being a problem once there started being people in charge who weren't ashamed of comics, like Feige.

 

Who "realized its a problem" in the 90s? I thought the problem of the 90s was the gimmick covers, x-treme reimaginings and darkening of characters and the speculation boom. Never once have I read about the problem being Kirby.

 

Movie makers are hardly distancing themselves from Kirby. The directors producers and production designers of Thor Ragnarok went out of their way to produce as Kirbyesque an aesthetic as humanly possible for the scenes set on Sakkar. DC is developing a movie based on Kirby's New Gods and Marvel is developing a movie based on Kirby's Eternals.

 

And one of the most Kirby-esque movies got an above 90% rating, to boot.

 

Fucked up times we're living in.

 

Once again, if you say so. I mean, there are lots of legitimate reasons to say that we're living in fucked up times, but a movie with Kirbyesque aesthetics being popular being one of them? Just who are you trying to convince? Is it maybe possible that it is simply that YOU don't like Kirby's work and are projecting that dislike on to other people?

 

San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle agrees, pointing out the obvious:

With “Justice League,” DC Comics is trying to replicate the success of Marvel’s Avengers franchise, but there’s one big problem. These are not flashy personalities with special talents that happen to complement each other. These people are not, as Hillary Clinton might put it, “stronger together.” They might as well be working solo.

Basically, Superman can do everything and needs no one else. And Batman can do nothing. And there’s a few in between who can do a little here and a little there. For example, they can bring Superman coffee.

... In this crew, Batman is like a rich amateur who produces a movie and then insists on being in it, and no one can tell him no because he has the money. Or he’s like a player coach, long past his prime, who puts himself into the starting lineup. In the right hands, Batman is a great character, with lots of psychological nooks and crannies. Throwing him into the Justice League is a disservice to the character.​

As Ian Malcolm might say, "just because you can put Batman and Superman in a movie together doesn't necessarily mean that you should."

 

Yes but can't one say similar about The Avengers? What good are a guy with a bow and arrow or a women with pistols against hoards of aliens or killbots or whatever when the team have Thor, Cap, Hulk and Iron Man's supertech? Whedon lampshaded it in Ultron, where Hawkeye points out how a guy with a bow and arrow taking on an army of robots makes no sense.

 

One could, but that would be to miss at least three key points. For one, Clint and Natasha aren't random lone actors - they're SHIELD agents (and then established Avengers), with all the access to backup and resources provided to the same. (Notice how we don't get recruitment scenes for either of them in the first movie - introduction scenes, yes, but not recruitment scenes.) Point two, at no point are they expected to hold their own against (or even engage) such Big Bads as Loki or the primary Ultron. Point three, the Avengers team earns Clint and Nat's story presence precisely because the core trio of Tony, Cap, and Thor are so well balanced, as the initial forest brawl demonstrates. Clint and Nat are there to add flavor to the story, not to be its main drivers - and while there is indeed a superficial similarity to the power disparities at play, that major distinction makes all the difference.

(That said, in the first scene of Ultron, when the mooks are ordered to fire on the "weaker ones," I do always expect Tim Allen to yell "They're the Avengers - there are no weak ones!" )

 

Pegg was one of the writers of the movie.

 

So much for "Whedon was just doing what Snyder wanted."

 

Paging @DigificWriter

 

Which was always transparent PR spin, though some people continue inexplicably to quote it as the Holy Word of God.

 

Whedon did what the studio wanted him to do not what Snyder wanted him to do. Which is, after all, who hired him and signed his check.

 

No need to defend Whedon. He didn't do anything unethical. It's just that WB wants people to believe that this was a Zack Snyder movie, slightly changed by Joss Whedon, so as to not anger the 5 Zack Snyder fans left.