Wouldn't the best thing to do for the JLA film is allow the writers from the animation department to write it. In my opinion, the Justice League animated films are some of their best work and it would be smart of WB to at least allow them to write a script. The JLU series had more emotional depth to it than anything they could possibly come up with
Advice From A Fanboy: Justice League
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
I'm all in favor of rebooting Star Wars, or at least the new trilogy and maybe even the expanded universe. But you touched an interesting point: DC (and Marvel) characters get messed up with ALL the time, it's like every new writer has an idea and he just throws it on top of the poor character without properly analyzing the consequences. Whereas Star wars had some HEAVY supervision on the canon Expanded Universe in the sense of, which character can die, and when can they die, what can or cannot happen, so on; this "respect" that is given to the mythos makes it possible to move through the timeline in a sensible manner: characters die FOR GOOD, they don't return EVER AGAIN, for instance (unless there's some GREAT explanation, like Palpatine, but then again, he learned to "transfer himself" from his old master Darth Plagueis). For instance a "not so much reboot" a lá New 52 came in the form of Star Wars Legacy, the essence of Star Wars is there, nice entryway for anyone who never touched anything related to the franchise, the story is great, the chracters are cool... And most importantly, it's set so far in the future it doesn't impact on either the books or movies.SonicWaffle said:
Batman, Superman, Wolverine, Spider Man, all of them, on the other, remain like toys for writers to do as they please...
I love this idea that people keep recommending his comics to me as the one or two examples where he deviates from his usual self, as if to say "Look, he's not boring in this one, I promise!" I read his stuff for awhile, found him a terminally boring character with a massive white knight complex, and washed my hands of it. In a similar situation, wouldn't you do the same? So either the character was massively retooled to be actually fun to read while I wasn't watching, or there were a couple of instances where the narrative at work required he be something else entirely, which means I shouldn't have to worry that he's gotten exciting, as these are minor deviations. From what you're describing, though, I'm not sensing much change from when I left him, so I'm not too worried.SonicWaffle said:Then you should probably read more of his comics. At least once, he has been forced to kill, and spent a long time loathing himself for it.BehattedWanderer said:
Yeah, like when he totally wasn't too busy fighting Brainiac to save his father's life.BehattedWanderer said:
Oh, wait...
He actually has one of the easiest weaknesses in the DCU to take advantage of. For a very long time now, his primary weaknesses have been kryptonite and magic, which in the DC universe is about as common as spandex. Though that's not really relevant to what we're talking about, because you seem to be looking at the idea of danger or threat backwards - it's key to Superman's character that the threat is rarely to him personally, but to everyone else. Having taken on the role of protector, he feels duty-bound to save the day, and so a threat to innocent lives has more weight than a threat to him.BehattedWanderer said:
Actually, the driving reason for giving Batman the kryptonite ring was so that there would be a way to stop him if he were mind-controlled again. Not so much that he thought he'd become corrupted by power, more that he was worried someone might use him as a weapon.BehattedWanderer said:
Biiiiig difference between having people in your life, and people you can relate to. In terms of what he can do, he's elevated so far above the understanding of the majority of those people that he considers himself an outsider. Sure, he has family and friends, but none of them are on the same level as he is.BehattedWanderer said:
Fun certainly, but consistent? How many Flashes have there been now? Off the top of my head, counting only people who had the job for a significant length of time, I've got four in mind, though there are probably more that I'm missing.BehattedWanderer said:
I also, much as I love the character, am of the opinion that he won't work in a movie. How could he possibly? Superman has super-speed, true, but he also flies and hits stuff and has laser vision, so there's plenty he can be shown doing on screen. Any time Flash uses his powers he'll either be too fast for the audience to see or the movie will have to be put in slow-motion while he's shown moving at normal speed.
Obviously he does not have to do all the boring shit - he's a king, they can delegate. He sends people to handle the UN or diplomatic meetings, while he goes off to punch sharks or whateverBehattedWanderer said:
Ever read the JLA: World War Three storyline? An ancient superweapon that causes unstoppable rage and bloodlust is approaching Earth, and pretty much every nation on the planet strikes up a war with everyone else. Aquaman basically wins by rocking up out of the sea with his army and announcing "My kingdom covers three quarters of the planet, I have millions of heavily-armed soldiers whose power levels are close to my own, we have technology you haven't even heard of yet. Picking a fight with the king of Atlantis is a really fucking stupid idea, OK?"BehattedWanderer said:
It's just an interesting aspect to the character. How many superheroes have the option of solving problems on a much grander scale than punching things?
The bit about magic being his weakness is something I've read, but had kind of forgotten, and that's part of the issue. Here is a Superhero that just gets a free "I'm the Protector of everything!" card, not because he can be, but because that's the only mentality he could possibly have. With his near-invulnerability and massive "only I can save everyone" egotism, he has to be the valiant protector. Except, in any other case, the protector risks personal safety to save someone else. Here...there's barely a threat to him, unless some of the Anti-Superman designed villains come out. Oh no, a building is burning with people inside! How is that a problem? He could remove the building, fly around frost-breathing the fuck out of the fire, and go on his merry way. A villain is attacking! Why not politely move it the fuck out the way? Oh, Plot Contrivance says he can't now, oops!
The mind-control thing is at least a bit more interesting than I remember it being, until I remember who I'm talking about, and realize the championing force for "goodness" in his red and blue tights could never be a villain for long, because that's just not right. If there was even the slightest chance he would actually be corrupted by his powers, he'd be infinitely more interesting to me. FFS, Spider-man has more of a moral dilemma than Superman does, and he's not even marginally as powerful.
Oh, and don't let too much of my sarcasm about Aquaman get your undergarments of choice into a tighter twist. Yeah, I imagine he'll be interesting in the movie, but almost the entire lineup has some form of super strength already, so the most interesting thing about him at the moment for me is that his massive army can show up at the end Holy Grail style and arrest the end the movie. It won't happen, of course, but I'm secretly hoping for it.
Honestly, the only way I'm seeing this be actually good, and not just an Avengers mimic, is if they focus on what having these disproportionately powerful individuals coming together means for the rest of the planet, and that having them together means more and more powerful things rise to try and stop them, so you have certain villains show up for the explicit purpose of pointing out how the world has changed, and how much more danger it's in now more than ever, despite the way the heroes are present. Justice League versus the people they fight to save? That would be fun. As it sits, however, it kind of sounds like Dragon Ball Z, where a bunch of powerful lunatics stomp about screaming rocks into sand and punching mountain ranges into caverns. While Batman sulks in the corner.
Going to have to correct you somewhat on that one, champ.Saltyk said:
Superman lost his entire planet, with all but a handful of his species being destroyed, and the most prominent of those who survived are villains whom he eventually is forced to murder.
Martian Manhunter is also the last of his kind, except for some evil cousins who sometimes turn up and grudge-fuck the earth.
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) had his entire city blown up. Green Lantern (Jon Stewart) had a planet he was meant to protect blow up, lost his wife, and was then crippled. Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) had his girlfriend murdered almost immediately after becoming GL. Green Lantern (Guy Gardner) had the single stupidest haircut in comics for a really long time.
The Flash (Wally West) worshipped his predecessor (Barry Allen), who ended up dying and leaving poor Wally alone.
The Atom's wife went insane and murdered his friend's wife in a vain attempt to get Atom to love her again. No, I don't get the logic either.
Elastic Man's wife was raped by a supervillain, and then later murdered (by the Atom's estranged wife, see above).
Aquaman had his baby son murdered, which caused his wife to leave him, and him to abdicate his throne and disappear.
Those are just the ones I can think of after five seconds. Thing is, pretty much all the DC's heroes have horrible, tragic things happen to them, much like any other superhero whose stories have been running long enough. Spiderman doesn't exactly have a monopoly on misery, everyone gets a slice when the writers feel they need stronger motivation (or just want to fuck with the character).
Oh, man, the Green Lantern backstory is huge. The history of the Corps is long, bloody, and at least once it involves Earth's prominent GL (Hal Jordan) going bugfuck crazy(see above re city being blown up) and wiping out the rest of the Green Lantern Corps. Then you've got the various other Lantern colours (Red, Orange, Blue etc) and the war that ensues, and then of course you've got Blackest Night in which everything goes wrong for everyone...Saltyk said:
See, this is the point of the JLA. Where the Avengers has always been more about big ol' fight scenes (which is fair enough), for many years now the JLA has been more about tactics. They have a wide spectrum of powers, and instead of just hurling Superman at every problem (which generally doesn't work, because while he is very powerful he isn't as powerful as people like to make him out - White Martians, for instance, are pretty much his power level as are a number of other League foes) they tend to use what resources they have to their disposal. This is Batman's primary role in the team; he can't go toe-to-toe with many villains the way the others can, he's there as a tactician to analyse situations and opponents and use the others' powers accordingly.Saltyk said:
In most versions of the characters, they're pretty much best friends. They moved past the "distrust but grudgingly respect" things a loooong time ago.Saltyk said:
Aquaman is basically hardcore, but the "talking to fish" thing gets him labelled as crap by people who either don't read comics or are just riffing on him as a joke. Unfortunately, that stuff sticks in the public consciousness, and can often eclipse the original material.Saltyk said:
Even shows like Big Bang Theory, about a group of geeks who love and constantly reference comic books, slips into Aquaman-bashing. Not that realistic, because someone who owns as many comics as those dudes really ought to know better
Different perspectives, I guess. He's always more fun in team-up books because A) it's more about how his goodie-two-shoes persona clashes with guys like Batman or Green Lantern and B) heroes tend to band together to take on the biggest threats, which nine times out of ten means stuff that can kick Superman around the schoolyard like a football.BehattedWanderer said:
There's less a question of him being an all-powerful god figure when he's fighting stuff at his power level or higher, or just absolutely fucktons of things which are less powerful than him but have numbers on their side.
I'm going to recommend you another comic at this point. If you ever get the chance, read Kingdom Come. It's pretty much about what happens when, over the years, Superman loses that mentality and withdraws from the public eye. It was a backlash against the 90's-era "dark & gritty" heroes - as Superman's loved ones die, and the heroes around him become more and more violent, he starts to feel like he doesn't fit in. He becomes bitter and withdraws from humanity entirely. When he returns, he's forced to adopt a darker path more similar to Batman's methods, which inevitably ends in disaster because other heroes take their lead from him. In becoming less than the "valiant protector" you describe, he ceases to be the symbol he is, and without that symbol the world becomes a much darker place.BehattedWanderer said:
The whole take is actually very interesting, being more about the role of Superman in the DC than anything else. Yes, lots of people can complain that his personality is boring or that he's too powerful, but the miniseries serves to underscore than in the continuity as a whole his primary purpose is to be Superman. I doubt it will change your mind on finding him a boring character, but it might be food for thought as to why the DC editors don't change him.
Oh, it's not you per se, I'm just quite knee-jerk about this stuff. I have a friend who is a big comic book fan, a serious collector, who reads or has read just about every book going. We argue all the time, though, because he can't seem to form an original thought about any of it, instead parroting whatever the internet tells him is fashionable to say.BehattedWanderer said:
"Aquauman is shit! All he does is talk to fish!"
"Iron Man is a total alcoholic, he's drunk all the time!"
"Superman is boring, he's just a one-note boy scout!"
"Ant Man is always beating up his wife!"
It really gets on my tits, because he actually reads these books and on every one of these points he ought to know better, but he still makes the same stupid jokes as every other moron with access to Reddit. So when I see people making the same sort of statements, it tends to send me into argumentative mode
I've read quite a lot of JLA books, and it's usually extremely unlikely for any of their fights to be a walkover. As I said to someone above, they tend to be physically overmatched even with dudes like Superman or Green Lantern on their side, so there tends to be a much higher reliance on tactics and strategy than just punching things. That's a movie I'd find interesting - Batman taking control, keeping his eye on everything and trying to utilise the others' powers where they'll be most useful. Avengers did something similar, but without quite so much actual thought behind it; it was basically just Cap telling all the others what to hit. They solved a big problem (one which generally makes a bigger appearance in JLA stories) by having one big battle in a small area, and evacuating all the civilians beforehand rather than several battles at once and guys like Flash being tasked with getting the civvies clear.BehattedWanderer said:
I agree with you that if they ape Avengers, and just make it a straight-up brawl against weaker enemies, it'll be stupid. They need to make it a proper JLA movie, and that means the characters actually have to think and use their strengths to best advantage.
Actually, Kingdom Come is on my list of ones to read, but I never remember to look for it when I'm shopping around. I'll get around to it one of these days. Probably. As to everything else, I look forward to seeing which parts they muck up, but I'm still saving most of my excite supplies for Avengers 2.SonicWaffle said:
Someone else might have mentioned these already, but here's my two cents of advice for WB:
1. Have Bruce Timm as one of the producers. Even without being the driving force behind the movie he understands the DCU and will be able to help whomever ends up writing and directing it to not screw it up horribly.
2. If Amanda Waller is in the move, get CCH Pounder to play her.
1. Have Bruce Timm as one of the producers. Even without being the driving force behind the movie he understands the DCU and will be able to help whomever ends up writing and directing it to not screw it up horribly.
2. If Amanda Waller is in the move, get CCH Pounder to play her.
I've been reading New52 Aquaman, and let me tell you something, a better team up would be Wonder Woman and Mera (Aquaman's wife), that woman knows how to wreck people's shit like a pro!Winnosh said: