WB's Justice League 2017 movie pre-discussion thread

There's nothing wrong with a "family friendly" style. But I don't want DC Comics to start copying Marvel's style for their films. I hate lack of originality. One of the reasons why I enjoyed DC Comics' 2016 output so much is that they struck me as something new and different from Marvel.

I have no problem with Marvel maintaining their own style. It works for them. But I do hope that DC Comics will continue to maintain their own style.

 

From Snyder's vero account.



http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/02/19/justice-league-trailer-coming-soon-according-to-zack-snyder/

 

Snyder released an early look at Aquaman in JL today.

https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

 

It looks amazing! But then again visuals were never the problem.

 

Any word on who the 7th Justice League member will be? They've been pretty quiet about it....and has filming ended for it already?

 

We don't know that there will be 7 of them.

Yes, way back in October.

 

Uhh...yeah we do. There's other "official" art that also says Unite the 7


But thank you for the update on filming....so many of the actors we might not know are in the movie yet...

 

No we don't. That's just Aquaman's poster with the tagline "Unite The Seven"… as in The Seven Seas. Pretty fitting for Aquaman.

 

New poster:
https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder/status/844930411604062209

Trailer dropping in 2 days.

 

How do you know that it is about the 7 seas?

Maybe it's about the power rangers -- uniting 7 colors?

 

Simple, but a cool design.

 

The thing is...aren't DC properties known for their family friendly accessibility. I mean, even more than Marvel's stuff, items for babies with the Superman, Batman and Wonder WOman logos are available in many ways for infants and toddlers.

DC TV (on CW) is "family friendly" (to a degree...way moreso than the DC FU). The movies (at this point) don't have to copy the style...but in be in the ball park!

 

I don't know about that. The mainline comics do get pretty adult at times, hell there was a storyline at the beginning of the New 52 where Joker got his face cut off, and a controversial scene with Batman and Catwoman having sex in their costumes. I think they've toned some of that down since then, but they still tend to be in at least the PG-13 range, especially for the darker stuff.
They do have a few alternate versions that are geared towards an all ages audience though like the Superhero Girls and Super Powers lines.

 

The thing is, the general public doesn't read the general stuff...they know the lighter stuff. And certainly one of the factors for WB making these movies, is trying to get the general public excited about it.

I mean look at The Force Awakens and Rogue One. They drew on nostalgia yet brought something new. Certainly TFA waaay accomplished its goals. ANd even Rogue One, which "only" did 530 million in the US (over $1 billion worldwide), was one of the darker Star Wars movies (and one that people felt was much deeper philosophically than the original movies), but yet still "felt" like it was Star Wars.

it's certainly possible to do drama & deepness yet still be PG/PG-13.

I think one of the non-negotiables is that at some point in the movie, it has to feel like a comic book come to life.

 

I still say that TDKR-influenced, squared-off version of the Bat logo makes him look less like the Batman and more like the Groucho Mustache Man.

Yeah, the mainstream DC Universe has been ridiculously dark for decades, a result of everyone trying to copy Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns without understanding that their darkness was a means to an end instead of an end in itself. A couple of years ago I saw a DC comic released for Free Comic Book Day, meant to be given away as a sample for potential new readers, and it was just so incredibly violent and gruesome, some alternate future where superheroes were being dismembered and having body parts grafted onto robots or aliens or something, that I couldn't even get through it. I can't imagine that being good for drawing in young readers. Although I have the impression that some of the more recent stuff is tending in a more upbeat direction.

 

Yeah, I think they've been toning some of that down a bit after all of the critisms.
Hell, the first issue of Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman started with Hera fairly graphically decapitating two horses and then just as graphically growing humanoid top halves to turn them into Centaurs. And let's not even get started on the first Suicide Squad collection .

 

I thought DC was more graphic and brutal before the nu52. Sue Dibny was raped brutally by Dr. Light in Identity Crisis. Infinite Crisis was incredibly graphic throughout, especially Prime Superboy punching through people's heads.. After IC I remember Red Tornado having his arm below the elbow graphically torn off by Solomon Grundy (RT was in a human body at the time). Those are just a few I remember off the top of my head.

 

The Joker crippling (and possibly raping) Barbara Gordon and brutally killing Robin (a major character) in 1988...

 

I made this post months ago here about the state of Marvel and DC's universes. How the writers and editors mirror each other in the tropes, trends and stories they tell. Nothing succeeds like success and both Marvel and DC chased the same rabbit and fed it to their audience during this time.

The Modern Era Part 2: 2004-2016.

The circle completes here. Marvel and DC's turn down the dark road starts in the same year, with similar things happening, and similar agendas.

Avengers Dissassembled

Spoiler

Brian Michael Bendis' story involves a retcon where the Scarlet Witch has not come to grips with losing her children (who were revealed to be manifestations of Memphito back in 1990 in West Coast Avengers), and in a mad rage uses her powers to kill Scott Lang and Hawkeye, force the Avenges to attack one another, and blow up Avengers Mansion. In BMB's follow up story, House of M, Scarlet Witch uses her powers to wipe of the bulk of the mutant population.

In the follow up series by BMB, titled New Avengers, the Avengers are back but their team is fragile and barely holding it together. BMB adds a lot of snide and snark in his ensemble writing so the Avengers don't act like friends or comrades in arms. The next event would be Civil War, which would split the recently reformed team apart, again.

and Identity Crisis

Spoiler

Brad Meltzer adds a retcon to the JLA history in a story that is a murder/mystery. Meltzer turns a two time JLA villain and a long running Teen Titan's villain (Doctor Light) into a serial rapist who sexually assaulted the wife of a 3rd tier hero (Elongated Man). The JLA take a vote on whether or not to mind wipe Doctor Light and make him less threatening. Ollie, Hal, and Dinah voted against. Zatanna, Carter, Barry, Ray Palmer voted for it. Batman discovers what the League is doing and rather than explain to him that they took a vote on their course of action, they decide to mind wipe him too. The League would also alter the minds of a dozen or so other supervillains. I would like to add the mind wipe retcon has nothing to do with the actual murder/mystery of the story. It was just added to set the tone of the DCU going forward.

In JLA Crisis of Conscience, the League finally comes clean, and tells Batman what he already knew. The League breaks up right before another universe ending crisis occurs in Infinite Crisis.

The agenda I think for this era of DC and Marvel was this: 'your heroes are not the perfect individuals you think they are. They have flaws, they are fallible, they are ineffective and you shouldn't like them. But keep reading about them because they are the good guys'.

Spoiler

Depending who you were, you either were presented as being ineffective or fallible during this post 2004 - 2006 era.

Captain America - Ineffective: 60+ years of clashing with HYDRA, and the Skull, his inability to stop AIM's terrorist activities, and the troubles holding New Avengers together.

Iron Man - Fallible: Tony championed the Supherhero Registration act, metahuman indefinite detention (with Reed Richards), and when Tony was made director of SHIELD his leadership lead the registered Avengers into conflict with the unregistered heroes. Tony's bad judgement ultimately led to Norman Osborn (the murderous, super villain Green Goblin) to assume control of SHIELD and all it's resources.

Green Arrow - Fallible: The mind wipes of several super villains and the JLA's dirty laundry fell to him and others, because Ollie said Clark and Bruce couldn't be bothered with such details. Eventually the truth came out in both the hero and villain community (an Ollie having a public identity at the time) had to take it from both sides for his choices.

Batman - Fallible: Batman's paranoia and bad judgement led to his surveillance and research of the JLA, JSA, TT and other metahumans falling into the wrong hands, again (see JLA Tower of Babel or the animated movie JL Doom), and as a result Ted Kord died, heroes were attacked and innocent civilians were put in danger.

Superman is a special case though. I believe the writers were aiming to make him ineffective during this era, but they ended up making him look apathetic to everything going on around him. In Identity Crisis, Ollie alludes to Superman knowing about the Leagues illicit activities. In Superman #636 this is confirmed and more. Superman admits to Batman and WW (who didn't know about what the League had done) that he knew about the sexual assault, Doctor Light, the mind wipes of various villains and the mind wipe of Batman. Superman's excuse for never confronting anyone about it amounted to him stating he didn't think it was his place to say anything. Also, by the time he found out (which was shortly after the acts), what had happened had already happened and there was nothing he could do about it. This kind of behavior we would see a lot from Superman during this era.

This is what happens when a writer couldn't adequately explain why Superman failed to act before this retcon was introduced. The retcon was set in JLA stories circa 1978, in the Bronze Age.

So yeah. Hate your heroes. Ugh.

Now that I've set the stage, you're ready to see how Marvel and DC both moved forward from this point.

Spoiler

I would say that Marvel's thing for this era would be events. Events and making as many tie-ins and crossover comics as they can for events. However, the problem is that many events follow a similar trend.

Avengers Dissassembled: Scarlet Witch attacks the Avengers and the Avengers

House of M: Hero vs Hero in an altered reality

Annihilation: Nova, Starlord, Gamora, Drax, Silver Surfer, Ronan and Super Skrull vs Annihulus.

Civil War: Hero vs Hero. Capt America dies, while Tony and Reed look like the biggest A-holes. But Marvel said Tony and Reed were right all along.

World War Hulk: Hulk vs X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers and anyone else he comes across.

Annihilation Conquest: Starlord, Gamora, Drax, Groot, Nova, Rocket Raccoon, and Quasar vs the Phalanx and Ultron. The success of both Annihilation stories led to the 2008 revival of the GOTG.

Messiah Complex: The first mutant born since House of M, and Bishop sets out to kill her.

Secret Invasion: Hero vs Hero vs Skrull

Ultimatum: Where Jeph Loeb destroyed the Ultimate Universe by killing as many heroes and villains as he possibly could. I won't go into detail, just just search the title for yourself and you'll see how graphic and down right mean spirited Loeb took things to.


Messiah War: Cyclops trusts Hope to Cable and the X-Force to protect her from Bishop.

Dark Reign: Norman Osborn and his Cabal conspire to take over Earth, now that SHIELD is gone, Nick Fury has gone to grass, and the Avengers Agencies are in no position to oppose them. Osborn leads his Dark Avengers as Director of HAMMER and controls the Dark X-Men through Emma Frost.

Seige: Norman Osborn attacks Asgard

Fear Itself: An Asgardian God manipulates the heroes of Earth, instilling fear and doubt and that leads to more hero vs hero.

Schism: Wolverine vs Cyclops. Fractures the X-Men. Logan makes his own school, and Scott makes his own school.

Shadowland: Daredevil with the Hand Clan fights Spider-Man and the Defenders

Avengers vs X-Men: Nuff said. Cyclops kills Prof X, is thrown in jail and the X-Men all look like bullies.

Infinity: The Avengers vs Thanos.

Original Sin: Nick Fury murders The Watcher Uatu, and sets the Avengers on a wild goose chase for his killer. This leads to more hero vs hero, until the misunderstandings are resolved and the mystery is solved. Also, Thor is left unworthy, for some reason.

AXIS: Another topsy turvy world, where the some heroes are made bad and some villains are made good, and they fight.

Hickman's Avengers vs the Illuminati members of the New Avengers and to an extent Secret Wars (2015): The Illumanti is destroying parallel Earths during the "incursion" era, and Captain America's led Avengers vow to stop them from continuing their actions. Think of the incursions like COIE multiverse, but instead of the Anti-Monitor destroying Earths, it's the New Avengers.

Civil War II: Another Civil War, and yet another hero vs hero event

Divided in Marvel NOW 2.0: The new status quo for Marvel after Civil War II ends. Notice the absence of the FF, X-Men, Daredevil, Peter Parker, and Dr Doom holding Iron Man's helmet. You can imagine where this is going.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/a...ff-with-enigmatic-divided-we-stand-group-shot


Hero vs Hero is the status quo at Marvel during this era, and as you can see, it is still going on. How can you like your heroes if they are always at each others throats? While it's different for every character, these big events can bleed over into the solo titles of a character's book, and the repercussions can be felt there. Ms Marvel (Carol) was a victim of this back in her 2005 run. Every other 6 or 7 issues another event was happening and Carol's book had to tie into it. This led to the author curtailing his own vision, in order to keep up with editorial demands.

Characters like Spider-Man, DD, the FF normally can avoid the big events, and have their own smaller events. They miss out on the action, but sometimes that's or the best. However things like One More Day and Brand New Day were crafted to reset Spider-Man's status quo and remove consequences other events latched on to him (Civil War and Peter revealing his identity).


While Marvel does not have reboots the way DC does, they do have line wide resets to make the titles more accessible to new readers. These would be Marvel NOW (2012-2015), the short lived All New All-Different (2015-2016) and the new Marvel Now (2016- ). Both Marvel and DC are chasing the new readership rabbit, and give the length of these eras and the kinds of stories they put out during these times, you can see they aren't very successful.

During the first Marvel NOW era, Thor became unworthy (for still unexplained reasons) and replaced by Jane Foster, the FF were cancelled after 50+ years running), Carol Danvers has received 3 relaunches to "make her happen" (possibly to make her Marvel's WW), the X-Men were given 2 mediocre books authored by BMB (the man responsible for culling their herd since 2004), the Avengers were turned into out right villains during the incursion arc etc.

Personally, I've had enough of Marvel's direction.It's just not the same and it seems to me at least that Marvel is doing things now to get readers attention, and not tell compelling stories with their characters. I mean, are there any good villains and villainess for the Marvel heroes to fight anymore?

I would talk about how Marvel is also trying to appeal to the pop culture crowd by making their comics and TV properties as similar to the MCU as possible (which so far has been for the worse), but I won't. I still have to write about DC.


My advice for this era of Marvel, is ignore most of the events and focus on the individual or team of characters' titles.

Ed Brubaker's 2005-2012: Captain America

Mark Waid's 2011-2015: Daredevil

Christopher Yost's 2008-2010: X-Force + the Messiah Trilogy he coauthored on the X-Men poper title.
Rick Remender's 2010-2012: X-Force

Dan Slott's 2013-2016: Superior and Amazing Spider-Man

Jonathan Hickman's 2009-2012: Fantastic Four and Future Foundation

Dan Abnett's 2008-2010: Guardians of the Galaxy + both Annihilation stories and Inhumans War of Kings

G. Willow Wilson's 2014-2016: Ms Marvel

Matt Fraction's 2012-2015: Hawkeye

Jason Aaron's 2012-2014: Thor: God of Thunder

Al Ewing's 2015-2016: Ultimates

Spoiler

The 2005-2011 era
After Infinite Crisis in 2005, the agenda at DC seemed to be combine the old with the new. One Year Later is what this era during 2006 was called. Once again, depend on who you were this era was good to you. Batman, WW, Booster Gold, the JSA, JLA (until 2008), Birds of Prey, Green Lantern, Flash, JLI, and the Legion of Supeheroes all had great stories during this time. However, other titles like Superman, Teen Titans, Aquaman, Hawkman/Hawkgirl, Green Arrow, Red Arrow, and Batgirl had some tough times. It's not that the writers didn't have direction. It's that the direction they took was either bad, decompressed, or mediocre in it's delivery.

With regards to events, you notice that Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) really became the point man for this time. All of his events were good, and touched across the DCU. Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, Brightest Day, War of the GLs. Batman coming up second with his stories involving the introduction of Damian, Batman RIP, Battle for the Cape and Cowl, Batman and Robin Reborn, and Batman Inc. Supes meanwhile had New Krypton and War of the Superman... .

You had good multi-part stories like 52, which was the brain child of several authors. And then you had terrible multi-part stories that were mandated by the editors like Cry for Justice (the beginning of the JLA's 3 year hole in the crapper till New 52), and Countdown.

Hot and cold events like Final Crisis and Flashpoint brought their own frustrations, but FC did bring Barry Allen back into prominence. So there is that.

Ultimately, I can say that only a handful of titles during this era were worth the paper they were printed on. Dan Didio has said he knew most of the books they were publishing were in bad shape and TPTB at WB told him to fix things. And as a result, we got the New 52.

The 2011-2016 era
The New 52

Like I said above, Batman and GL were doing really good during the 2005-2011. So when the New 52 came, they got to keep their continuity and all the current story lines the authors were working on. Everyone else though was given a hard reboot. Aquaman and Hawkman were given softer reboots because Geoff Johns was working on both during Brightest Day. Which gave both characters a shot in the arm and set them on good tracks going forward.

Now that the New 52 is officially over, I can say with certainty that this era was a mixed bag experiment. There were some good stories and some new ideas (Justice League Dark being one of them), but a lot of it turned out to be window dressing. The problems that plagued the Pre-New 52 era still plagued the New 52 era. Writers and editors with bad direction for the characters. New 52 I believe was able compensated the disparity by being a jumping on point for a lot of new readers. The books were accessible, so the cracks weren't as noticeable as they were before.

Looking at the list of comics, I say that most good New 52 titles that hadn't been cancelled, peaked in 2013. Around their 20th- 25th issue.

Grant Morrison's Batman Inc and Action Comics Superman

JH William III's Batwoman

Francis Manapul's Flash

Geoff Johns' GL run with Peter Tomasi on GL Corps and Tony Bedard on GL New Guardians.

Geoff Johns Aquaman

James Robinson and Tom Taylor's Earth 2.


Titles that remained good after their 25th issue would be:

Conner and Palmiotti's Harley Quinn titles.

Brian Azzerello's Wonder Woman.

Geoff Johns Justice League (until Darkseid war in JL #40).

Scott Snyder's Batman (until DCYou with Robot Bat).

Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin.

Gail Simone's Batgirl, and later Steve Cameron's Batgirl of Burnside.


You had late blooming titles such as:
Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow. When you had a writer writing Ollie like Ollie and not like Clint Barton. Which began in 2013.

Tim Seely's Grayson. Which began in 2014

Becky Cloonan's Gotham Academy. Which began in 2014.

Genevieve Valentine's Catwoman. Which began in 2014

Scott Snyder's Batman and Robin Eternal. Which began in 2015.

Everything else, though isn't worth talking about. Remember, DC started with 52 tiles, and most of which were given the axe in the first year or so. You'll notice that most of the good titles during this era are Batman books. Here is the list of Batman titles during the New 52 and their authors.

Spoiler

Batman: Scott Synder

Batman and Robin: Peter Tomasi

Batman Incorporated: Grant Morrison

Batman The Dark Knight: David Finch and Gregg Hurwtiz

Batman Eternal + Batman and Robin Eternal: Scott Snyder

Detective Comics Batman: Tony Daniel

Detective Comics Batman: John Layman

Detective Comics Batman: Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato

---------------------------
Catwoman: Judd Winnick

Catwoman: Ann Nocenti

Catwoman: Genevieve Valentine

-----------------------------
Batwoman: J.H. Williams III

Batwoman: Marc Andreyko

-------------------------------

Batgirl: Gail Simone

Batgirl: Cameron Stewart and Brenden Fletcher

------------------------------
Nightwing: Kyle Higgins

Grayson: Tim Seely

----------------------------

Red Hood and the Outlaws: Scott Lobdell

Red Hood and Arsenal: Scott Lobdell and James Tynion IV

-------------------------
Batwing: Judd Winnick

Batwing: Jimmy Palmiotti

-------------------------
Robin Son of Batman: Patrick Gleason

We Are Robin: Lee Bermejo

Gotham Academy: Becky Cloonan

Gotham by Midnight: Ray Fawkes

Penguin: Pain & Prejudice

When it comes to events, again the DC events are far less invasive than Marvel's but they can still stink something awful.

2013: Trinity War was hot and cold.

2013-14: Forever Evil was good, but the bulk of the DC heroes weren't in it.

2014: Future's End had a tie in for nearly every running comic on both Earth 1 and Earth 2 but ended up being awful. It competes with Countdown for worst event DC has done. Despite all it's tie ins, DC burned all bridges with it and never referenced it again.

2015: Convergence was a waste of time and poorly executed.

2016: Finally we come to Rebirth, with DC capitulating that the New 52 was too far away from what makes their characters likable and what makes the DC universe so great. Now they are going back and reintroducing things from the pre-New 52 era into the characters that exist now and promising to do better.

Ok so that took forever. Before DC announced Rebirth and before I read the first issues of the titles they released so far, I was done with DC and Marvel. Too much had changed and there weren't enough titles with characters I liked to get invested in. Now, I think I can stick it out a little longer and give DC a shot. Marvel though, with this new "Divided" universe they are pitching for Marvel NOW 2.0, I can't do it. Where are the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Peter Parker Spider-Man? That's who I care about. I've listed titles for both Marvel and DC that I enjoyed and that other people found good. If you weren't in the know before reading my posts, you certainly are up to speed now.