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I basically agree with both KTG AND Mr Morden ... which probably just demonstrates how fickle we can be

 LunarSol wrote:
That's my point though. There are dozens of stories about "kid gets super speed" and JL sure told one of those. It's a really common power set at this point. What it didn't really tell was a story about the Flash and certainly not Barry Allen. Their comics fall apart when they forget this too, but its really the movies where we've repeatedly seen this fail.

It wasn;t a Flash movie though was it? They (IMO) told you enough and more importantly showed you enough on screen to get an idea of a character, who he was, why he was doing things etc.

I (and I doubt many others) have no idea who comic Barry Allen is or was and why he differs from The Wally bloke - but he seemed an engaging character on screen - and different enough from both Marvel film Quicksilvers - who are the only other speedsters i can think of in films?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
That's my point though. There are dozens of stories about "kid gets super speed" and JL sure told one of those. It's a really common power set at this point. What it didn't really tell was a story about the Flash and certainly not Barry Allen. Their comics fall apart when they forget this too, but its really the movies where we've repeatedly seen this fail.

It wasn;t a Flash movie though was it? They (IMO) told you enough and more importantly showed you enough on screen to get an idea of a character, who he was, why he was doing things etc.

I (and I doubt many others) have no idea who comic Barry Allen is or was and why he differs from The Wally bloke - but he seemed an engaging character on screen - and different enough from both Marvel film Quicksilvers - who are the only other speedsters i can think of in films?

And its fine that you guys dont know the differences between wally west and barry allen. Not a problem there. The issue is if you are trying to build a cinematic universe. Which dc was even if snyder wasnt, then you want to do the characters justice so that it fits together right and future directors can build on it.

But if barry allen has all the personality of wally west then where do they build towards? What do you do when wally shows up later? For the record, wally west was the flash from the justice league cartoon in the 90s. The one built off the bruce timm batman the animated series.

 Lance845 wrote:
The issue is if you are trying to build a cinematic universe.

Except not really. If you are trying to transliterate the comics into a cinematic universe then sure but if you are making the cinematic universe distinctive from the comic one there is no such need. There will be complaints and mock 'purity tests' no matter what one does so no reason to try and pander to a crowd that will never be happy no matter what. Of course this doesn't mean that what you come up with will be good either but if you're going to create something you might as well be hated for your vision and not another persons.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The issue is if you are trying to build a cinematic universe.

Except not really. If you are trying to transliterate the comics into a cinematic universe then sure but if you are making the cinematic universe distinctive from the comic one there is no such need. There will be complaints and mock 'purity tests' no matter what one does so no reason to try and pander to a crowd that will never be happy no matter what. Of course this doesn't mean that what you come up with will be good either but if you're going to create something you might as well be hated for your vision and not another persons.

Except the MCU hasn't had that issue. Nobody did mock purity tests when Starlords dad was Ego the living planet instead of some alien royalty guy. The core elements of the character were kept in tact with the MCU and the details get shifted around to build something stronger.

Iron Man in the comics is very stoic. Very different from the RDJ version. The difference is there is no second person to have been Iron Man who had the RDJ personality traits. They didn't mash multiple characters together, or more specifically give the character one persons personality with the other persons name. Instead they took the reletively boring and weak elements of the the comic tonys personality and jazzed it up but kept the core bits about what made him Tony Stark and stayed true to his character. The person we saw in JL wasn't at all Barry Allen. It was Wally. It was Wally's insecurity. It was Wally's goofiness. None of Barry Allen's personality was there and thats what people who know the characters are bothered by.

Where the DC movies have missed the mark are the core elements of the characters. Barry Allen is Barry Allen in name and family but not in actual character. Batmans got his guns and his murder. Superman is a dour sad sack. Cyborg has nothing to do and no real personality (contrast the Teen Titans cartoon where he is bursting with personality). Wonderwoman has been treated great though! They have her core elements all falling into place and shes really well received. Aquaman is some kind of dude bro. His best moment in JL is when wonderowman has the lasso of truth on him and he starts to show his actual character. Hopefully we see more of that in the AM movie and less of the dude bro posturing thats just obnoxious.

I don't need or want the characters to be perfect transpositions of their comic book selves. The comics are OFTEN really stupid. I DO want to see the things that make that character great end up on screen and the fat get trimmed or changed to make them even stronger.

Most audience members don't know how Barry is or isn't in the comics. It's not an iconic thing. If anything, they're liable to be more familiar with the fast-talking, wise-cracking Flash from the JL cartoon. CW Barry is his own thing too.

"The things that make that character great" are incredibly subjective, and you're are all over the place with your examples. Cyborg in the comics originally was a moody kid with a ton of anger issues toward his dad. He's not the "BOOYAH" kid from the cartoon.

So which is it for you? Which single medium has the 'correct' representation? Or are you just choosing the versions of these very malleable characters that YOU like?

 gorgon wrote:

So which is it for you? Which single medium has the 'correct' representation? Or are you just choosing the versions of these very malleable characters that YOU like?

There is no correct representation. Most of these characters have been reimagined dozens of times as is. At the same time, you're adapting the source material because something from the source material resonates with people. A lot of Marvel's success hasn't come from literal translations, but they have shown a willingness to recognize the core appeal of a character and trust that it will resonate with larger audiences more or less unfiltered. Other studios (not just WB) seem to assume these things need a complete reimagining to work for a broader audiences and go out of their way to make something that only superficially resemble the version of something that was popular enough to be worth adapting in the first place.

What is Barry Allens character like in the comics?

For me and I think many others RDJ now defines Iron Man - the comic images and style now even look like him (though probably taller) plus the chemistry with GP as Pepper was and remains excellent - which apparently is different in the comics?

Tom Hiddlestone owns Loki - I can't really image him as anyone else. MR as Bruce Banner is simply excellent. Who is playing these characters and how is at least as important as who they comic characters are.

This is of course a bit of a danger for Marvel when they finally loose some of their top names - however they do seem to bringing plenty of good new blood in as well.

As i said before - I found all of the JL characters as engaging, in a Marvelesque way which is a high commendation

A lot of the Marvel stuff is more defined by the Ultimate comics than the mainstream stuff. Iron Man is kind of an odd case, because its probably the first time the character really resonated in any form. The most notable difference is that the comic character for quite a while was defined almost entirely by the "recovering alcoholic" angle whose solo adventures almost entirely revolved around "my technology in the wrong hands" stories. No small part of why RDJ's performance is iconic is because they got a famous recovering alcoholic to play a famous recovering alcoholic. It's far from a literal translation, but it takes the core ideas and gets them across in a way the comics never really managed.

As for Barry, I think the CW gets the character pretty well, at least a young version of him. He's a bit of a weird character to pin down, as kind of by definition, there wasn't a "post-crisis" version of him until fairly recently, meaning most of his characterization is fairly new in the era of comics essentially defined by stuff like Batman: Year One. That said, there's always been a lot of Peter Parker in him with the running joke being that the fastest man alive is chronically late. He's generally always been the more shy, patient and analytical speedster though, being a professional forensic scientist long before getting his powers.

I'd say for me the problem with the DC verse version of Flash being Barry Allen is how much I like the CW version of Barry Allen. So if they'd named him Wally West (much less invested in CW Wally) then I wouldn't constantly be comparing him to a character I really like and being let down.

Reality is that DC suffers from the CW doing such a good job with their first/second tier heroes that it puts massive pressure on the big guys in their universe and even more when they have to use someone that's had a previous or current tv version.