When I first watched “Iron Man” a few months after it released, I had no idea who Iron Man or Robert Downey Jr. were, or that it was even part of the plan for Marvel’s trailblazing vision of multiple movies set in a shared universe. I wasn’t into comic books because, first of all, I didn’t know where to get them—comic books were a niche item in Kuwait when I was growing up—and, second of all, being a speed-reader, I was more of a text-over-visuals kind of guy. I didn’t have the patience to stop and look at the pictures to find out what’s happening, but rather I preferred to imagine in my head what’s happening. I wasn’t much aware of Marvel superheroes other than Spider Man and the X-Men, mainly due to the fact that there were multiple cartoons and movies in the early 2000s. But I have always been a huge fan of DC superheroes, Superman and Batman being my favorites. I believe that it was in 2010 when I finally realized that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) existed, and my dream of superhero team-ups in live-action movies was becoming a reality. From then on, I’ve gone to watch most of the MCU movies in theaters. My anticipation for Marvel movies hit it’s peak with last year’s “Infinity War” and it’s even higher for this year’s “Endgame” (which is the most anticipated movie ever on polls conducted by Fandango and USA Today!). “Endgame” marks the end of Phase 3 of the MCU, which is going to wrap up the main storyline started back in 2012’s “The Avengers.” But Marvel is still not done. With new movies slated for release as far as 2022, and plans for additional storylines through 2028, the MCU is only going to get bigger and, I hope, better.
So, with Marvel showing that an ensemble of superheroes could work on the big screen, and with all the money it was raking in, it was only a matter of time before DC created their own universe. And create, DC did. They started laying the groundwork for their DC Extended Universe (DCEU) with a reboot of the Superman franchise, “Man of Steel,” in 2013, and I was super-psyched! I would finally be able to see Superman on the big screen with an amazing non-spandex costume in all his CGI glory, rivaling those of Marvel’s heroes. With their direct-to-video animated movies being amazing pieces of storytelling, I was fully expecting “Man of Steel” to blow me away. But the dark take on the character did just the opposite. Superman is supposed to be the people’s hero, their moral compass, someone the whole world admires and respects. Superman values life and would readily give his life in order to save a single person. But in addition to letting his own father die in order to protect his secret, the climax of the movie was a destructive battle across the city, killing countless people and costing millions, if not billions, of dollars in damage, culminating in Superman killing the antagonist—which is something Superman has never done in the comics, or the animated universe (save for monsters or alternate timelines where he’s evil). I was honestly shocked, and left the theater feeling very disappointed by, not just the take on Superman, but the plot as a whole.
“Man of Steel” polarized the audience, and I was one of the people who didn’t like it. I don’t mind when filmmakers take liberties with stories and characters to bring their unique vision to life, but when you have someone as iconic as Superman, whose motto is the truth, justice and the American way, be changed who he is at his core, it feels like a betrayal to the character.
Then, three years later, DC released “Batman v. Superman” to jumpstart their superhero team-up, the Justice League, introducing Batman and Wonder Woman out of nowhere. The movie was a mashup of two popular iconic storylines, “Superman vs. Doomsday” and “The Dark Knight Returns,” which both deserve two separate movies—there is already an animated movie for each, which are both amazing—and not one haphazard jumble in an effort to get as much heroes on the screen together as soon as possible. The movie failed miserably, and fans weren’t pleased. The plot was too convoluted, had too much happening in a relatively short amount of time, and didn’t do justice to the amazing stories the movie was based on. It too had a dark take on the characters. It was honestly a dumb movie. The only thing I liked about the movie was Ben Affleck’s Batman. He was everything that Batman was in my head. I feel that he had the perfect balance between Bruce Wayne and Batman, and I think he is much better than Christian Bale’s Batman.
DC then released a different team-up, the “Suicide Squad,” casting big names such as Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, and Viola Davis. Many movie-goers wouldn’t know anything about the team Suicide Squad, and the main characters were relative unknowns except for Harley Quinn and Deadshot. There was also the Joker, but he got markedly less screen time than advertised, so much so that I don’t even consider him part of the movie. This movie followed the same dark gritty feel of the previous installments of the DCEU. It seemed that the sun never shined in this universe. Margot Robbie did an amazing job as Harley Quinn, and fans loved it so much that she is getting a movie of her own. Other than that, the movie was a waste of the time I spent watching it. With this movie, I had given up any hope of DC releasing any good movies and resigned myself to the fact that DC wouldn’t come up with anything even close to Marvel, who by this time, had cemented their universe and already expanded to include more characters. But then in 2017 came “Wonder Woman,” and that changed everything.
When it released, I was uninterested. I thought I’d watch it a couple of months after it was out, if I was bored. But taking note of the rave reviews it got, I was curious, and though it wasn’t the best superhero movie I’ve seen, it was very good. The movie did have its dark gritty moments, but on the whole had an optimism and heart that previous movies in the DCEU lacked. With “Wonder Woman,” DC showed that it could make good movies, if they focused on the story and characters rather than try to cram as many superheroes they could into a movie and then build a story around them. That was my fear from when they first announced that “Batman v. Superman“ would include the titular characters as well as Wonder Woman, and appearances by others as well. With DC’s superhero team-up, “Justice League,” slated for release the same year as “Wonder Woman,” and with just three movies in and only two being origin stories, I knew it was doomed to fail. DC was trying to play catch-up and compete with Marvel to release movies in a universe that is still in its infancy. Marvel spent four years and five movies, of which all were solo movies, building their universe before they brought all their principal characters together for a team-up. They made the audience get to know each character, their motivations, and who they were before putting them together in a team so that you would know each person and root for them—Marvel built a storyline and worked their characters around it.
With the failure of “Justice League,” even though it had some major star power and the A-listers of the DC superheroes, I think that DC finally had the sense to stop trying to compete with Marvel and focus on building their universe, rather than overpopulating it with heroes with no backstory. The creative heads themselves over at DC overseeing the DCEU were also changed with the aim of focusing on building the characters, rather than the continuity of the universe. DC’s president, Diane Nelson stated that, “Our intention, certainly, moving forward is using the continuity to help make sure nothing is diverging in a way that doesn’t make sense, but there’s no insistence upon an overall story line or interconnectivity in that universe… Moving forward, you’ll see the DC movie universe being a universe, but one that comes from the heart of the filmmaker[s] who [are] creating [it].” With the focus back on quality rather than quantity, I felt that the only thing left that needed to be addressed was the apparent lack of positive energy in the DCEU.
I don’t mind a gritty version of a character done properly. Take the Green Arrow adaptation for TV for instance, which started in 2012. That’s a balanced dark take on a character. The show started off with the antagonist killing all the criminals he came across and places where the character faces moral ambiguity, but it is interspersed with lighthearted moments by the supporting characters, which makes it work. It is in its seventh season and still going strong. The DC universe for TV, dubbed the “Arrowverse,” was proof to me that DC could not just do a shared universe, but do it well. With the release of “Aquaman“ last year, it showed that DC is moving toward a less noir, lighter take on the DCEU, with DC’s chief creative officer Geoff Johns stating that after the success of “Wonder Woman“ that future films would focus on the heart, humor, hope, heroics, and optimism of the characters. Now with just solo movies slated for release in DCEU’s near future, DC seems to be taking a step in the right direction to ensure that they have a better fleshed-out universe to do future team-ups. Although I love the MCU because of what it is now, my heart has and always will be with DC. With the DC Animated Movie Universe and the Arrowverse to keep me satiated for now, I long to see my favorite heroes reunite on the big screen to take down all the forces that threaten humanity.