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Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.

As for DC's stable, broadly speaking, their big heroes and the Justice League as a whole should be used for big mythological tales, that's why they're there, and is something that, broadly speaking, has worked for over 80 years.

For individual heroes, particularly Superman, I'd recommend Grant Morrisons video about All-Star Superman, where he makes the specific choice to make Superman as overpowered as possible for his story.

"That's why we made him even more powerful than ever cause everyone kept saying, 'you can't make a Superman story because if he can do anything than what conflicts are there?' Emotional conflicts. The biggest ones. The ones we all understand."

 insaniak wrote:

 Compel wrote:

I'd say for many, the deconstructions found in the Nolan trilogy worked. With, potentially, the exception of Bane. But I'm not entirely sure that's a deconstruction and more, just a completely different character with the same name.

Batman is difficult for live action, because so many of the circus freak characters that work so well in comics just look silly in real life. Nolan did a great job of grounding this characters and making them work on the screen. Even Bane, for me, was fine... Aside from that ridiculous voice.

Man of Steel, I think it's safe to say, mostly worked, EXCEPT I'd say for many people, I don't know if it's a statistically significant number of 'many' but anyways, I think for me at least, and several others, it was the necksnap that crossed that line. - For me, and others, at that point, the deconstruction no longer 'worked.'

Funnily enough, the ending of MoS was one of the few things that worked, for me. Zod forced his hand, and Cavill absolutely sold that scene, emotionally.

I had real issues though with the guy who can move so fast he's just a blur letting his dad die because someone might see him... I get why that scene happened, in relation to the story they were trying to tell, but it was just not believable.

I would agree with MOS - I was fine with some of it and even the final kill - not an issue for me personally but I get how it breaks the character for others.

In fact one of my main issues with the Nolan films was how dumb Batman was - especially in the second film - its awful so yeah it was not a Batman I recognised or enjoyed and the same with most of his other versions of the characters.

Meh, that's what you end up with when the character is meant to be smarter than then people writing them.

The Bendydick Comfypatch Sherlock Holmes suffered with the same issues.

Invariably the clues are telegraphed so heavily that in reality my dog could solve the issue (not even the older, smarter, one, the younger one that keeps hitting her head on stuff) or the detective ability becomes some Deus ex machina plot device, or in Batman's specific case he just so happens to have packed the precise bit of kit in his bat-pants that day to let him do the thing he needs.

I've accepted that writing genius-level characters is hard and set my expectations accordingly now, results in far less disappointment.

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.

Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

In fact one of my main issues with the Nolan films was how dumb Batman was - especially in the second film - its awful so yeah it was not a Batman I recognised or enjoyed and the same with most of his other versions of the characters.

Nolan certainly did undersell the 'World's Greatest Detective' aspect of Batman...

On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?

I enjoyed 'Batman Secret Files #2' The Riddler, but that was part of Tom Kings series, which... isn't great, if you find it by itself though, it's a good one, particularly for the reader.

I'd also recommend Tomasi's Detective Comics trade 'Mythology' that is a really great mystery, for Batman and the reader.


Part of me wants to say the Court of Owls saga, as well as Hush, but part of me is also kinda reluctant about them too.

I saw JL in theater and this still seems to have the same problems
Too dark, Taking itself too seriously, Pallete ranging from brown to not so quite brown.
Where people actually clamoring for a redo of justice league? and I think its been shown, Barring Aquaman, this little DCEU venture hasgiving us nothing but bad movies sense.

 BlackoCatto wrote:
The issue with deconstructions tend to be that especially these days that everyone wants to do such, just look at any of Tom Kings Work for the most part. Eventually you get to the point where there is nothing to deconstruct.

I think the issue is that they're seen as something that is 'good writing' (this is a bad assumption) and are often undertaken or appreciated in ways that defy their nature (this is a bad thing). Liking a deconstructive work is as easy as being a member of the audience. Making one requires significant appreciation for the source material so that you can actually aim the story effectively. At the end of the day a deconstruction is really taking a genre and playing it on the sliding scale of idealism vs cynicism, choosing where to apply optimism and convention vs applying realism and subversion.

Zack Snyder thinks mainstream comic books are stupid and that the average comic fan is stupid. He conflates liking works that are deconstructions of the genre with having a good understanding of it. Except he hates the genre so he can't actually put a good deconstruction together. He can only make dark and edgy swill that likes to parade around an unearned sense of cleverness and intelligence.

Zack Snyder wants to be the modern Alan Moore but that title has already been claimed by John McCrae in my book and at best Zack Snyder is the poor man's Frank Miller. Frank Miller was successful because he didn't do deconstruction. He just took things and turned the dark and angsty up to eleven and threw in gratuitous violence. He knows what he is and what his works are, so they can be crazy dark and fun at the same time. Snyder doesn't have any sense of himself as an artist, only an image of who he wants to be which doesn't reflect his actual talents. So we end up with half-baked mediocre work that thinks it's better than it is (which makes it worse than it could be).

End rant XD

There is a saying i heard once, To really hate something, you have to love it too.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?

Disregard if you've already read it, but The Long Halloween and its sequels are always classics. I want to say Knightfall has a bit too, but I think I'm just saying that because I like the story.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
There is a saying i heard once, To really hate something, you have to love it too.

That's asinine and clearly wrong.
Read any soldier's account from a war that weaponized xenophobia, or listen to bigots for about 30 seconds. Love isn't involved.

The 'thin line between love and hate' trope is _very_ messed up and damaging to people and their relationships.

Voss wrote:
The 'thin line between love and hate' trope is _very_ messed up and damaging to people and their relationships.

In many situations yes. In a more general sense though, I do think it can be surprisingly applicable to fictional works and audiences.

No one works up the energy to be pissed at a movie they don't care about (when's the last time anyone cared about Failure to Launch?). On the other hand, plenty of people can work up the energy to be pissed about crappy adaptions of their favorite works because they love those things and the movie is crap. Looking at you Lightning Thief. I don't know how you managed to feth it up so badly, but how damn did you feth it up badly! The Percy Jackson series already plays out like an action movie the bar was so low! When fans work up the energy to throw ire at something for not being good enough, it's probably because they wanted it to be good to begin with.

That said, I think Snyder's issue is different because I don't think he likes the works he's adapting and doesn't appreciate how the deconstructions he seems to like actually functioned or what made them good. He confuses style for substance almost universally and that's a backwards mentality for deconstructive works.

 insaniak wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.

Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.

That was a major plot point in John Byrne's Man of Steel relaunch after Crisis on Infinite Earths. There was also a really cool scene in Legends of the DCU (comic) where Batman is investigating a murder that framed Superman and Superman references the exact moment in the MoS comic as his reasons for not killing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Almost forgot:

When this hit, my brother asked my opinion. I said "45% of people are going to lash out because it's not Marvel, 45% are going to lash out because it's Snyder, and 10% will look at it objectively." I was apparently FAR too optimistic in my assessment...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On a semi-topical tangent, any recommended reads for The World’s Greatest Detective working those little grey cells?

For a recent one, check out The Batman’s Grave. A good street level crime solving story. Also Alfred is Peak sass.

Snyder and the Comic Movies

DC in general has the problem that their Animated Movies/Shows have always been very good
and to get equal good or better live action movies is tricky
(unless Marvel were there never really was a modern outstanding animated movie/show)


Snyder works if he can bring the Comic 1:1 on the screen
300 is a 1:1 version with some minor changes
Watchman had more changes, some for the better, some for the worse, but overall it works (never understood why some very short but important scenes were cut)


with the DCEU, Snyder would have been the right choice to take one comic and turn it into a movie
yet they took parts/themes/idead from several comics and turned them into 1 movie and this did not work out very well
this happens wit many movies today, instead of making a movie about the 1 story of the comic, they take the whole series to make 1 movie and things get lost (Alita as best example)

Instead of Batmen VS Superman (nad JL), they should have just taken the 4th part of Millers The Dark Knight Return series (The Dark Knight Falls), give it to Snyder and say, make a 1:1 and continue with The Dark Knight III

The neck snap for me wasn't the issue. It made sense - look at the devastation Zod had caused in Metropolis, he was too dangerous to be allowed to live and Superman could not capture him.

Nah, what I hate about the Snyder superman is Pa Kent being an Objectivist and that he's so miserable and reluctant about helping people. Also, his Clark Kent is not very likeable, nor his Lois Lane. But MoS is the strongest of the Snyder DC movies for sure.

Others have said it better but Snyder just doesn't like traditional comics, he thinks they are for kids. Only the violent and darker deconstructions are interesting to him without really understanding the original characters. That's why it's no big deal to have Clark Kent be guided by an Objectivist philosophy or for Batman to kill people left right and centre and use a gun in every second fight scene.

To be honest, those movies have ruined both characters pretty thoroughly in the popular imagination. I doubt they will recover for quite a while yet.

People mentioned Grant Morrison here and I have the same problem with him to an extent. All he does are weird post modern deconstructions of the characters, to the point that the characters barely feel "there" any more. I much prefer the workhorse serial comics by people like Chuck Dixon, who just told stories month after month keeping the characters who they were and not shaking up the status quo or reinterpreting everything. Comic books are supposed to be a serial medium, but the industry is addicted to shake ups, reboots and reinterpretations because they are easier to write than a solid monthly series where interesting things happen while maintaining the status quo.

To defend myself by my invocation of Morrison, I was specifically talking about 'All-Star Superman' - other things are a whole different can of worms, that typically result in me getting a headache if I try to understand them, but I still absolutely believe All-Star Superman works as an example of a reconstruction.

Fair cop. I know Morrison is talented, and I wouldn't look down on anyone for enjoying his stuff. It's just not my cup of tea. Didn't mean to come across as critical of you at all.

 insaniak wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the tornado scene either... Although, I'd argue if you want a scene like the necksnap to be part of your story, you shouldn't use Superman to tell it, and there's better, more suitable characters for it... Such as Wonder Woman.

Yes, and no. The very fact that it was Superman is part of what made it so powerful, and why it was such a power move by Zod. He deliberately forced Superman to make a choice between two crap options, knowing that would mess him up whichever one he chose. And the fact that this happened (in this continuity) early in Superman's 'career' can then be used as a character shaping moment - the fact that he was forced to kill that one time should make him more determined than ever to not let himself be put in that situation again.

Right. And this underlined his 'choice'...Earth over Krypton. That's why I thought it was weird that they went there again in BvS before his death (the 'my world' stuff). He'd already made that decision throughout the battle of Metropolis..."Krypton had its chance." I thought that was a powerful line.

For me, it was also interesting putting the character in a no-win scenario. For too much of the character's history, there was no such thing...never any real stakes. Superman '78 included...maybe even 'especially'. Faced with a dilemma, he would just superpower his way out of it and win. This is partly how his array of superpowers was formed. One can say that the setup was contrived...fine. I think I'd argue it was no less contrived than the most of the escape ropes over time.

Bringing this back on topic...the snap was Snyder and Goyer's idea. Nolan thought it was OTT at first, but they eventually sold him. He did kill Zod at one point in the comics, but you can point the finger at ZS on that one. I understand it for all reasons that have been said, but if that second of the film turned people off, then it was probably a misstep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
To defend myself by my invocation of Morrison, I was specifically talking about 'All-Star Superman' - other things are a whole different can of worms, that typically result in me getting a headache if I try to understand them, but I still absolutely believe All-Star Superman works as an example of a reconstruction.

His run on JLA was also hardly a 'deconstruction'. If anything, it was a restoration by putting all DC's headliners together again after years of too many second-rate heroes on the team. Multiversity wasn't deconstructive...hard to get more 'constructive' than that one. We can keep citing examples.

I agree, I liked the Zod fight for the reasons you outline. It's good to see Superman having to contend with someone who is too dangerous to be stopped that he cannot overcome in any other way. And he makes the choice, I think the right choice, to kill Zod. Any other choice could have had terrible consequences. What prison on Earth could contain Zod? He would eventually break free and wreak unimaginable havoc again, and he might defeat and kill Clark next time. No, it had to be that way.

Goyer though, urgh. What a hack. I'm really suspicious of anything he is involved in by now.

 Da Boss wrote:
The neck snap for me wasn't the issue. It made sense - look at the devastation Zod had caused in Metropolis, he was too dangerous to be allowed to live and Superman could not capture him.

Nah, what I hate about the Snyder superman is Pa Kent being an Objectivist and that he's so miserable and reluctant about helping people. Also, his Clark Kent is not very likeable, nor his Lois Lane. But MoS is the strongest of the Snyder DC movies for sure.

Others have said it better but Snyder just doesn't like traditional comics, he thinks they are for kids. Only the violent and darker deconstructions are interesting to him without really understanding the original characters. That's why it's no big deal to have Clark Kent be guided by an Objectivist philosophy or for Batman to kill people left right and centre and use a gun in every second fight scene.

To be honest, those movies have ruined both characters pretty thoroughly in the popular imagination. I doubt they will recover for quite a while yet.

People mentioned Grant Morrison here and I have the same problem with him to an extent. All he does are weird post modern deconstructions of the characters, to the point that the characters barely feel "there" any more. I much prefer the workhorse serial comics by people like Chuck Dixon, who just told stories month after month keeping the characters who they were and not shaking up the status quo or reinterpreting everything. Comic books are supposed to be a serial medium, but the industry is addicted to shake ups, reboots and reinterpretations because they are easier to write than a solid monthly series where interesting things happen while maintaining the status quo.

Dunno if you heard, but DC is seriously cutting back on publications and has laid off most of it's creative talent. The company appears to be up for sale by AT&T. Warner would retain rights to make movies, DC would continue putting out comics.

The 2 people who appear to be serious contenders for buying it are Steve Jeppi, owner of Diamond Comics, and Robert Kirkman, creator of the Walking Dead.

Bringing this up here because of something I've suspected for a long time - Hollywood needs to be at arms length from publishing for the model to work. The theory behind Justice League is you could bring in a director like Snyder and have him refine the vision of someone like Geoff Johns. Obviously, this didn't work out well, but I'd place the blame with Warner moreso than with DC. People seemed to want to see a movie that was about the Justice League they know from the comics, what came out was very different in tone and execution. The amount of money it lost pretty much ruined DC's business model.

If DC was to ressurect itself under a new publisher, there's a chance it could get back to creating the kinds of sustained narratives that drive a franchise. With JL, Warner was trying to craft a franchise out of something that was JL in name only. It didn't have much to do with story arcs from the original and that may have been too experimental for most fans.

DC's business woes I think go beyond the movies.

Superhero comics are in a weird place economically. They have amazing brand recognition. Everyone knows who Superman and Batman are and culturally interest in the characters is vast.

Yet, comics themselves are a shrinking medium. Competition from video games and television and manga have been edging them out of the market for years and DC and Marvel have both generally shrugged in response and done little to change up their business models. Part of the problem is that mainstream American comics enjoyed a certain niche dominance in the 80s and 90s I think. They had a broad read from young children to older adults, but new forms of entertainment have been beating on their door since then and gradually eating away at their section of the pie. Manga I think has been especially damaging; manga is very similar in style and content as a visual comic medium, and a single volume of manga is more competitively priced than an issue of a DC or Marvel comic book in terms of content. Manga and Anime go hand in hand, and have a greater consistency and novelty than western comics which keep obsessively repeating certain plot points from 20-30 years ago. That's coming home to roost now, except while Marvel has the MCU and a thriving licensing business spurned on by it, DC has met continual failure to expand itself into the new and more diverse entertainment economy.

I think you're right that executive meddling deserves a lot of the blame for various things not succeeding, but there's also something I'd blame as innate to DC comics; they always seem to take their adaptations and expansions too seriously. IDK why it is. The comics have lots of funny and light hearted moments and Marvel isn't exactly any less dark than DC most of the time. Yet, there's a quality that is lacking in DC that I think defies explanation but continues to hold it back and it's something in the mix that always ends up with DC seeming to take itself far too seriously.

Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).

The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.

 Compel wrote:
Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).

The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.

Yeah, see I don't disagree with this at all.

That's why I find the problem hard to describe on the DC front. Saying DC is darker doesn't work. Even saying it takes itself too seriously doesn't quite work. The issue is deeper than one of simple content or presentation.

Maybe the right way to put it is applicability? As time has gone on, certain elements of Marvel have maintained a sort of timeless quality. The X-Men comics can be interpreted and appreciated in almost any era; young men and women who are different struggling to live in a society that doesn't accept them. We can critique that sure, but that basic concept in itself will always have a demographic. In comparison, Batman is a rich kid sad his parents died. It's compelling in its own way, but it lacks a certain pop in the way Spiderman is a story about a common person who suddenly finds himself shouldering responsibility he never asked for. Superman is an idealistic sort of figure, but not as clearly defined in what his idealism is supposed to represent as Captain America.

So maybe it's that DC has struggled to really make itself stand out. It's not like it can't. Superman and Batman has between the two of them stared and centered in some amazing comics over the years, but their best works aren't reflected in the serial nature of mainstream publications which I think lack some of the clearly defined undercurrents of Marvel's main lines. Marvel has maintained a sort of narrative relevance as time has marched on, while Batman has remained very 80s Dark Age for the last 30 years and Superman has just bounced back and forth with no one seemingly know what to do with the character. And that kind of raises another issue; Batman and Superman carry this ship. If Batman and Superman are floundering, then the entire line is floundering.

 LordofHats wrote:
DC's business woes I think go beyond the movies.

Superhero comics are in a weird place economically. They have amazing brand recognition. Everyone knows who Superman and Batman are and culturally interest in the characters is vast.

Yet, comics themselves are a shrinking medium. Competition from video games and television and manga have been edging them out of the market for years and DC and Marvel have both generally shrugged in response and done little to change up their business models. Part of the problem is that mainstream American comics enjoyed a certain niche dominance in the 80s and 90s I think. They had a broad read from young children to older adults, but new forms of entertainment have been beating on their door since then and gradually eating away at their section of the pie. Manga I think has been especially damaging; manga is very similar in style and content as a visual comic medium, and a single volume of manga is more competitively priced than an issue of a DC or Marvel comic book in terms of content. Manga and Anime go hand in hand, and have a greater consistency and novelty than western comics which keep obsessively repeating certain plot points from 20-30 years ago. That's coming home to roost now, except while Marvel has the MCU and a thriving licensing business spurned on by it, DC has met continual failure to expand itself into the new and more diverse entertainment economy.

I think you're right that executive meddling deserves a lot of the blame for various things not succeeding, but there's also something I'd blame as innate to DC comics; they always seem to take their adaptations and expansions too seriously. IDK why it is. The comics have lots of funny and light hearted moments and Marvel isn't exactly any less dark than DC most of the time. Yet, there's a quality that is lacking in DC that I think defies explanation but continues to hold it back and it's something in the mix that always ends up with DC seeming to take itself far too seriously.

Last I read, DC has been doing better of late after all the changes. That they cut a lot of costs -- including very high-priced talent -- and it's paying off. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Personally, I think a big problem for the comics publishing business is that they aligned themselves away from developing the comics collectors of tomorrow. The industry made its bet on comic book specialty shops that are frequented more by adults with disposable incomes who visit every week. What's more, they've juiced their profits for years on things like variant covers and giant Secret Crisis War on Infinite Infinities tie-in events where 'everything changes' (until it changes back). This comic fan grew up buying comics with one-shot stories when I happened to find myself in a newsstand/convenience store/etc. Low commitment all around. My kids like comics okay, but long-running story arcs just dampen their enthusiasm.

However, they're very open to digital, and they like my subscription to DC Universe Infinite because they can access the long story arcs and such on their schedule. I think the future will clearly evolve down that path, and I think it's sustainable...well, for everyone except comics stores. I expect that printed books will exist for a while, but steadily decline, become a novelty and then die out as we older folks age out.

I'll agree with the general consensus that Snyder doesn't understand what he takes apart well enough to know how to put it back together in an interesting way. To me, nothing illustrates this more than the needless moving of the "nothing ever ends" dialog from Doc/Oz to Owl/Rorsch. I quite like the movie as a whole, but this change really serves no purpose and really misses the point and power of the whole thing.

I don't think his Superman issue is really unique. Trying to make Superman interesting is a problem that's plagued writers for decades. He makes the common mistake of seeing Superman as the character and not putting the work into writing Clark. The alien "more human than any of us" is a powerful idea that's entirely rooted in his upbringing but requires investing in goals that aren't tied to the costume. The change to a fundamentally good savior from above who fortunately looks past his suicidal redneck upbringing leaves the character directionless.

The neck snap isn't really a problem in the film. It's issue is primarily just that there's nothing behind it. We're not given a character who seems particularly hesitant to kill, nor one that seems particularly concerned with helping others. We're not connected to the people of Metropolis to be horrified by its destruction. When the big moment comes, there's no conflict to connect with. It's angsty noise rather than a meaningful character building that's devoid of any of the impact it thinks its creating by having the boy scout kill.

Pretty much yep, all the yep

Zack Snyder wrote:Once you’ve lost your virginity to this ****ing movie and then you come and say to me something about like ‘my superhero wouldn’t do that.’ I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m like down the *****ing road on that.

It’s a cool point of view to be like ‘my heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t ****ing lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corporations. My heroes didn’t commit any atrocities.’ That’s cool. But you’re living in a ****ing dream world.

Which, of course, brings me personally back round to 'Whats so funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way' and 'Superman VS The Elite.'


Hopefully I bleeped out all his swearing properly.

I think I started replying to this thread trying to be positive, and I really should and I'm really sorry to all the people who are kinda into this sort of world - I kinda like the Injustice series as well (which acknowledging its own problems, particularly involving Wonder Woman), which isn't TOO dissimilar on the surface.

But I just find it really, really hard to engage positively.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Comicswise, I'd say Marvel are always consistently darker and drearier than the main DC fare (EG not Black Label / Vertigo).

The main reason I can never get on with Spider-man is because I've never been able to shake the feeling his life is an unrelenting hellscape of neverending torture and misery.

Yeah, see I don't disagree with this at all.

That's why I find the problem hard to describe on the DC front. Saying DC is darker doesn't work. Even saying it takes itself too seriously doesn't quite work. The issue is deeper than one of simple content or presentation.

Maybe the right way to put it is applicability? As time has gone on, certain elements of Marvel have maintained a sort of timeless quality. The X-Men comics can be interpreted and appreciated in almost any era; young men and women who are different struggling to live in a society that doesn't accept them. We can critique that sure, but that basic concept in itself will always have a demographic. In comparison, Batman is a rich kid sad his parents died. It's compelling in its own way, but it lacks a certain pop in the way Spiderman is a story about a common person who suddenly finds himself shouldering responsibility he never asked for. Superman is an idealistic sort of figure, but not as clearly defined in what his idealism is supposed to represent as Captain America.

So maybe it's that DC has struggled to really make itself stand out. It's not like it can't. Superman and Batman has between the two of them stared and centered in some amazing comics over the years, but their best works aren't reflected in the serial nature of mainstream publications which I think lack some of the clearly defined undercurrents of Marvel's main lines. Marvel has maintained a sort of narrative relevance as time has marched on, while Batman has remained very 80s Dark Age for the last 30 years and Superman has just bounced back and forth with no one seemingly know what to do with the character. And that kind of raises another issue; Batman and Superman carry this ship. If Batman and Superman are floundering, then the entire line is floundering.

You hit the nail on the head with the overreliance on Batman and Superman. Although the studio execs would never admit it, there was one major factor to the Marvel movies being as popular as they were: Back when the first couple of films were coming out, Marvel wasn't allowed to fall back on the X-men or Spider-Man. It's hard to remember now, but back in the before times, Spider-Man and Wolverine were the two Marvel characters that people actually knew about. Sure, they'd heard of Iron Man and Cap, but didn't know anything about them. The fact that Marvel Studios was forced to have their first movie be essentially a blank IP meant that they had the opportunity to sell a new character to fans, and Iron Man 1 was fortunately good enough to do so, as was The First Avenger.

DC either hasn't gotten that opportunity or hasn't taken it. The closest we have now is general audiences actually liking Wonder Woman now that the movie is out, but that's not nearly good enough. Look at the mainstream perception of everything else. Green Lantern is still a joke. Aquaman could have been saved by the movie, but no one watched it and DC still isn't ready to admit that that character has his own problems (there's a reason why most Marvel comics don't involve Namor). Green Arrow had a show on the CW, but general audiences don't watch TV shows; if they did, Daredevil probably would have been in Endgame. The closest they've gotten in recent history is kind of selling people on the Flash by putting him in the Justice League movie, but unfortunately, that film turned out to be, well, what it is.

The only way for DC to bail out their Batman-shaped ship is to create good movies based on everyone else. Sell the Flash to people. Everyone loves relatable charismatic inventors, or I'm told. Make him Bill Nye or Adam Savage in red spandex. Then do the same thing with Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and maybe even some less well-known characters like the Elongated Man. It's really not too hard.

Or, you know, they could just keep going down the Batman/Superman rabbit hole and eventually leave the public eye entirely while constantly wondering why no one likes hearing stories about the same superhero that's been getting movies for the last half a century.

DC movies outside of Batman always reek of executive meddling and chasing success rather than setting the bar. Sometimes that involves chasing the success of Batman, but rarely do you see a feature film that understands the character beyond appearance and powerset.

Some of that is the same issue you see with all comic characters in that they've evolved significantly and there's a huge difference between who they were in their origin stories and their iconic personalities that hold up now.

That's actually something Aquaman does well. It walks a really good line of showing the character unburdened with responsibility while making the movie about him accepting his role and taking the weight of leadership for the good of his people. The movie has other problems, but it was clearly written with an understanding of when Arthur works. WW and Shazam! generally get this as well.

GL is a good example of a movie that wanted to write a sequel but didn't know how to get there. Hal is just really written as this generic, blank slate protagonist without really understanding how his personality is important to his role in the story. I think he's probably the second hardest main league member to get right, which is why he so often ends up in the same, bland shell Superman does.

The C Reeve Superman films were/are iconic and that may be part of the issue.

Same (IMO) with the Burton Batman films and the Nolan versions, however bad I think the latter were they are the benchmark to which the others are set.

The Marvel films did not have that issue of cosntantly being compared to the iconic films.

I also think that the best superhero films are about the people, relationships etc - and thats what the Marvel films do so well - as well as the action and imgaery and snappy dialogue. I would agree that Aquaman/Wonder Woman works in that way (and it also something Nolan never does and I don't think can)

but bottom line is you have a to make a good film drama that happens to have a superhero/s in it - not a "superhero film and again I think thats what Marvel does very well.