With news recently breaking that Warner Bros. Pictures is actually moving forward with a
Justice League movie, once again a new beacon of hope lighted up in our hearts. After all,
Marvel’s The Avengers proved that a team-up superhero movie can work. Will Beall is set to write a script for it, and comic book industry legend Mark Millar himself said that he heard that the script is “dark and mature”, which would make it very different in tone compared with
The Avengers. But well, with the confirmation that the movie is in development, and a script is being written, what story it could follow? Here I have five ideas that a
Justice League Movie could use, and keep that in mind, the movie doesn’t have to necessarily follow every important aspect of these stories, but mostly the basic idea and add its own magic.
1)
Justice League: Tower Of Babel
Tower of Babel deals with Batman's perceived betrayal to the superhuman community by keeping records concerning the strengths and weaknesses of his allies in the JLA, including plans to neutralise his allies in a fight. His files are stolen by Ra's al Ghul, who uses them to defeat the League through a coordinated attack to prevent them from interfering with his latest scheme.
This story has a big focus on Batman, which is DC most successful character today when you talk about movies. A movie could very well follow this idea, but some of the aspects would most probably have to be changed to make it more familiar to the audiences. Between the changes, the ideal can be something like the story having the original seven members: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), The Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, and of course keeping Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson return, maybe?) as the main villain and his own henchmen. And such a story wouldn’t need a direct focus on the team origin, but instead, on the relationship between them and exploring their own individual personalities, mainly as their trust on Batman comes at risk. Note:
Justice League: Doom handled it well, adding other enemies in the story as well, but so many villains normally doesn’t work in a live action movie.
2)
Justice League: The New 52
In September 2011, following the conclusion of the Flashpoint miniseries, all DC titles were canceled and relaunched from issue #1, with DC continuity being rebooted again. The first six issues of Justice League were set five years in the past and featured a brand new origin for the team, while issue 7 and beyond takes place in the present day. The starting line-up of the team consists of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, the Flash (Barry Allen), and Cyborg.
The recent DC Comics reboot is the way to go for a younger and more interesting approach to a JLA origin story. In this new scenario, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, etc all are established heroes, fighting evil before getting together to form the League. This incarnation of the team has Darkseid as their main nemesis, and in a movie, such a villain can give a bigger challenge to the group, and there’s also the possibility of him bringing an army from Apokolips. A very good example of how the Darkseid subordinates could work on this could be like the one we see in the first issue of the comic when Batman is chasing a foe who has some advance weaponry, who before dies mentions Darkseid name, and the movie can go through the mysterious direction as of “Who is Darkseid?” Not to forget the excellent focus on the ego of each team member, like Batman, who even with Green Lantern showing off his powers, and being good at dealing with their enemy, doesn’t care for any help. Green Lantern is also an arrogant guy, always referring to himself in the third person. Superman kind that differs from his big boy scout classic personality, giving a punch first and asking questions later, mostly because he knows that he is a powerful man. Even Aquaman new version is better on this with all that Shark action, and he knows that he’s not the "coolest" superhero there is.
3)
Justice League: Justice
The story, which takes place outside regular DC continuity, has Lex Luthor assembling the Legion of Doom after he and several other villains begin to have nightmares about the end of the world and the failures of the Justice League to prevent said apocalypse. As the Legion begins engaging in unprecedented humanitarian deeds throughout the world, they also launch a series of attacks on the Justice League and their families. The threat that the Legion was warned about destroying the Earth turns out to be caused by Brainiac, who seeks to destroy Earth during the chaos.
Like I said before, several villains in a live action movie never works, but if eventually the movie does follow this type of story, then this might be a good one to use. In this case scenario, the movie would focus more in the villains, by having them doing humanitarian deeds around the world, but also attacking the Justice League and their families. Maybe this story could be mixed with Tower of Babel a bit, and have these villains exploring the heroes weakness, but let’s not go deep on it. There could be some great characters development, both from the villains side as I already pointed, and from the heroes side too, by exploring well the attacks on their families. Also, in the end of a movie Brainiac could be revealed as the main threat and maybe force the League and the Legion to join forces to defeat him. Like I said, this is an idea, doesn’t necessary needs to follow the original story concept.
4)
JLA: New World Order
Posing as a new group of super-heroes, the Hyperclan have descended upon Earth, convincing everyone that they are a benevolent force. But as their true nature and plans come to light, only the World's Greatest Heroes can stop them. Standing side by side, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter take on these alien posers and come to realize that Earth needs a guardianship made up of only the mightiest of icons.
If WB wants an alien invasion type of story, then my suggestion would be this one, with the Hyperclan coming to Earth and doing good actions, having citizens by their side, the League suspicious, and in the end, with the heroes finding out that the Hyperclan were not the benevolent beings they pretended to be and were using mind-control technology to turn the public against the League. This idea would be a more different and interesting approach of an alien invasion story, with the aliens “trying to cure the planet”, instead of the classic invasion, also having their personalities explored, and eventually turning the public against the League, which would give the chance of good dynamic for them in terms of how they should act before new benevolent beings. Also, they’re Martians, with this relating them to Martian Manhunter, giving the character a bigger participation in the story.
5)
Justice League: Secret Origins (From the animated series)
From the animated tv series, the pilot episode has Batman and Superman teaming up to deal with an alien invasion, and a telepathic message leads the duo to a military base housing future ally J'onn J'onzz.
Having the influence of the story from an animated series is not something movies normally does, but Secret Origins is one of those which is so good, that could be easily used. It is yet another alien invasion plot, which would be great to have Batman and Superman relationship as the focus, as they’re the first ones to team-up here, also introducing The Martian Manhunter as an important part of story, with other heroes being aware about the alien attack and having Batman, Superman and Martian Manhunter recruiting them. This story would mostly be the main influence, a lot of aspects could be changed from it, but still have the essence of it, with Batman and Superman first meeting, and seeing that the world needs a team of heroes to go against such a threat, and of course, it would be a great and easy origin story, having good characters development and interactions.
I’m sure there are several other stories the movie could use, but I think these are the five best options, make sure to sound off in the usual place what you think of these and other stories that can be adapted.