It was inevitable, following the wild success of Marvel's The Avengers, that DC would finally pull their thumbs out and crack on with the film that the comic book community has cautiously anticipated since Supes and Bats first appeared on the big screen back in the 70's/80's: Justice League. True, we have waited long enough but I believe that there is more work to do before DC introduces the world to the World's Finest and co. The key to the success of this film lies in distinguishing it from it's Marvel counterpart not only in tone but, as I will explore in this article, in method too.
It has been posited by others on here and I agree that in regards to look, DC's best approach is to continue the old dark-and-gritty aesthetic that was (arguably) perfected by Nolan in the Dark Knight series and appears to be echoed in the upcoming Man of Steel. This is in stark contrast to Marvel's bright, vivid and slightly cartoonish style and while many will argue that hyper-realism has no place in a genre that concerns itself with the utterly fantastic, I for one enjoy the juxtaposition is creates and encourage DC to explore it further.
So let's take a look at the foundations that DC has already laid down. We have just put a lid on the current run of Batman films, we have a new Superman come 2014 and, lest we forget, we have Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern. I, like most others, was not impressed by Green Lantern but I also feel that a reboot at this point would be redundant. I say let it lie and give the character a chance to redeem himself in the JL movie and with any luck he will get a worthy sequel.
So where do they go from here? The logical next step, particularly in distancing the franchise from The Avengers, would be to do a World's Finest movie. The whole world and his wife would get onboard for a Superman/Batman film and would create a huge base-audience who will then be invested in seeing the following films. This would also be an elegant solution to introducing a new Batman without having to go through the motions of the Dark Knight's origin story yet again. The premise I think would be obvious. Superman and Batman lock horns for the first half of the film giving a great opportunity to showcase the differences between the two. I am hoping that the next incarnation of Bats will focus on his incredible intellect since he will need to bring something to the table of super-powers. It will be brains vs. brawn until they have to pair up in true buddy-cop fashion and face of against a common enemy. As the film comes to a close they agree that their conflict earlier had been unnecessary and resolve to unite the super-hero community to avoid similar misunderstandings in the future. Thus the Justice League is born.
The JL film itself could open on Superman and Batman researching reports involving superhuman powers and Batman, with his inexhaustible supply of paranoia, secretly creating contingency plans to take the individuals out if necessary. I realise that the DC animated film Doom that centered around the Tower of Babel story covered this but it is a neat way to connect the characters and have them legitimately involved. Remember, this is not a group brought together by Samuel L. Jackson in an eye-patch. This is super-powered individuals taking it upon themselves to regulate their community. This is again a difference to The Avengers that I think should be a main focus since it could be the element behind some questions of morals and could even be a running theme of the series. I won’t speculate plot or villains since I only wanted to highlight the possibilities leading up to the film, not the film itself but I would suggest introducing Wonderwoman and Martian Manhunter in this film and giving them their own features depending on their success. I would like to see a Flash film and the space between World’s Finest and JL could be the very place. The genre’s now standard-practice post-credit scene could be Batman keeping tabs on the new hero.
However, DC will most likely rush head first into an under developed JL film since they seem to think that The Avengers has slapped a sell-by date on the super-hero team-up movie. I hope that is just the pessimist in me talking but we’ll just have to see. If DC handle this properly it could honestly top the Avengers and dare I say it may lead to a cinematic installment of Kingdom Come. Since Civil War (a story arc that I consider to be the Marvel equivalent of Kingdom Come) is near impossible to translate to the big screen, it could be DC that have the last laugh.
Well there you have it. You know what to do…