Darkseid And Ding Dongs − Three Radical Storylines For The 'Justice League' Movie
Latino Review is citing a source who says Warner Bros. has settled on storyline its 2015 Justice League movie. According to the tipster, the film will look to issues 183-185 of the Justice League comic, which was released back in 1980. That plot has Darkseid — confirmed as the movie's villain — attempting to use a magical laser beam to blast planet Earth to bits and move his home world, Apokolips, into its place. Yikes!
Latino Review's stories are quite usually accurate, but until the news receives official confirmation, I'm taking this with a big-ass grain of Kryptonite. Besides, as cool as this sounds, there's a hell of a lot more from DC's storied history worth mining for the first cinematic team-up between Superman and Batman (and the rest, cough.) I think DC and WB need to consider all options available to them before committing, so to help them out, here are three other superpowered super stories worth exploiting:
1. Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985)
By the 1980s, the DC universe had stopped making sense thanks to 40-plus years of superhero funnybooks that had been reactively and haphazardly modified to suit the aesthetic tastes of the times. Batman was both the grumpy avenger of the 1970s AND the campy 1950s version whose relationship with Robin unfairly inspired the moral panic book Seduction of the Innocent. Superman was both a stiff-necked last son of Krypton and the guy who had Krypto the Super Dog. No superhero's official backstory made any sense at all, basically, and DC's official explanation, the Multiverse (all these various contradictory versions of characters existed in numerous parallel dimensions) now made less sense than Mulholland Drive.
To fix this mess, DC writer Marv Wolfman came up with Crisis, in which two godlike beings — The Monitor and his evil counterpart the Anti-Monitor — used DC's various character incarnations in a battle over control of the Multiverse. Total destruction was narrowly avoided when even stalwart villains like Darkseid joined the fight to stop the Anti-Monitor — the result being that DC became a single universe once more and some inconvenient characters were erased seemingly forever from Continuity. (RIP: Supergirl and Barry Allen.) Subsequently, that universe was rebooted, and the next two years saw Superman restarted at issue 1 and the publication of both Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Since Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight series and Zack Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel both take their cues from the post-Crisis DC universe, they don't need a reboot, but not so the rest of the DC movie and television continuity. We know Darkseid is the villain of the Justice League movie, but that doesn't mean his evil plan couldn't have the happy result of willing the recent Green Lantern movie, and the old Wonder Woman and The Flash tv shows out of existence forever. A Crisis-inspired plot could give us new versions of those characters without the tedious need for any sort of origin-story movies. Just so long as Mark Hamill's Trickster stays in the picture.
2. War of the Gods (1991)
You know which character is unfairly ignored, despite frequent, abortive attempts to revive her onscreen? Wonder Woman. By far the DC superhero with the most potential for epic plots full of crazy mythology this side of Superman, Wonder Woman is an immortal demigod and the second most powerful active superhero in the DC universe. Too bad though, because instead of the terrifyingly powerful Amazonian princess we need, every attempt to bring Wonder Woman back ends up being some silly faux-feminist nonsense that manages more than anything else to infantilize the character. This is why of all the trepidations I have about Justice League, the most troubling is how she'll be portrayed.
Warner Bros. can fix this by basing the plot of Justice League on the War of the Gods crossover, which was created to celebrate Wonder Woman's 50th anniversary. That story had the ancient Roman gods go to war against the ancient Greek gods (which is kind of like the original cast of Beverly Hills 90210 starting a gang war with the cast of the CW's 90210), while pantheons of other ancient cultures rose up and tried grabbing a piece of whatever was left. Wonder Woman and her fellow Amazonians of Paradise Island end up having to save Earth, with some help from DC's other heroes (including a Brainwashed Captain Marvel).
Darksied, being the antagonist of DC's New Gods, is the perfect behind-the-scenes manipulator to rile the old gods. And best of all, it gives Wonder Woman, criminally neglected in filmed-entertainment for almost 40 years, a chance to be front and center of Justice League without it coming off as painful tokenism.
3. Hostess Snack Cake Wars
Finally, we come to the greatest and the timeliest crisis for Warner Bros.' Justice League to overcome: The horrifying shortage of Twinkies.
From 1975 through the early '80s, Hostess advertised heavily in the pages of Marvel and DC comics via a series of hilariously irresponsible short comics featuring each company's superheroes and villains battling over control of — no, seriously — Hostess snack cakes. You can see the whole series of them here. Each adventure involved either some nefarious villain's plot to steal or disrupt the supply of these delicious, obesity-causing confections — believe me, I know. #formerfatkid — or superheroes using Hostess cakes to foil criminal activity. No matter who lost, we won, however, because Vanilla Pudding Pies were the shit.
Of course, now we know that if the average super villain was serious about destroying the supply of Hostess Ding Dongs and Twinkies, they should have gotten their MBA. So why not make this current event the basis of Justice League? Have the ruler of Apokolips form an asset management company, buy Hostess, and loot it from the inside via perfectly legal tricks like destroying the employee fund. Thrill to the helplessness of the Justice League as they fail to convince a bankruptcy court that not only should Hostess employees get to keep their pensions, but that Darkseid is planning to destroy the universe. Darkseid could even run for president, citing his business acumen as proof of competence and rendering Superman painfully impotent as cable news channels constantly demand to see his Kryptonian birth certificate.
Far-fetched? Hell yes, but no more so than the idea that unions are a force more evil than the Legion of Doom.
So what would you like to see in the Justice League movie? Sound off in comments.
Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine.
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Comments
I think if the rumors are true that the Darkseid will be the villain and it will be based on those comics then it will be a disaster. I think WB first mistake was using Will Beall. You need somebody that has been around comics his whole life and maybe even wrote them especially DC comics. You just can't take some comics and copy them. It looks like they are just copying the avengers. Plus Darkseid should be the final movie in a trilogy. It sounds extremely stupid to me. I wrote a JL screenplay for a screen writing contest that uses Luthor and Metallo as the villains and includes Superman, Batman, WW, Green Arrrow, Aquaman and the Flash. Great story that's better than WB has to offer.so far. Now rumor has it that Beall is working off a story treatment from DC Comic book writers that WB hired. So it might not be Beall ideas after all. Either way, I think its a dumb story. The first JL movie should have a villain that can crush Superman, but can still be defeated by the league like in my story.
Yeah...uh, did you win that contest?
se estão querendo refilmar mulher maravilha tem duas atrizes excepcionais: cobie smulders e eshley newbrough,capazes fisicas e atuando.
I understood only two words of the above comment, but they were the right two: Cobie Smulders! (She should've been the Black Widow; I think she got cast as Maria Hill as a consolation for not getting the other part-but she was still great!)
I think they are simply going to have a hard time coming up with a movie plot and using the right villain(or villains) for a movie of this size. First of all Marvel's Thanos is their version of Darkseid(who was the inspiration for Thanos by the way) so to the fan crowd it may simply look like they are copying Marvel's idea. They are going to really need to knuckle down and come up with a really good story most of all. If you just make a no real story-special effects bonanza people are going to hate it. Second, they need (and I mean they NEED) better movies about the non-Batman/Superman heroes. Everyone at Warner Brothers is petrified of doing a Wonder Woman movie. It needs to get made and it needs to be good! It cannot be Megan Fox in a Wonder Woman outfit movie. If a Wonder Woman movie is made, it needs to be sure that not only is Diana Prince/Wonder Woman a strong but independent but also a team player character, the story needs to be good! Also of utmost importance is the casting of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman!!!! The actress had better be of high caliber! Look at Marvels movies. Top level actors and actresses for the roles they play and it works!!!!! How does it not work? Cast Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman(girl) or Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. Horrible casting choices. The Nolan Batman films got it right. Any forthcoming DC hero movie needs to do the same. Not just for Wonder Woman, but for a Green Lantern re-boot, The Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, heck even Aquaman. (I will note that an Aquaman film would be a stretch.) They also need a director who can pull all of that together in a cohesive well directed film. Christopher Nolan is the obvious choice but I think unless they offer him control of Warner Brothers and DC he won't do it. Joss Whedon is out because he will be committed to the Marvel films. To me, a Justice Movie in the next few years will be hard to do unless they get out a Wonder Woman and Green Lantern(Correctly) film. If the Justice League film does not have Bruce Wayne/Batman (No Azreal or other fill character for the Bat) it will tank. I think folks are dying to see the big blue schoolboy and the Dark Knight together on film.
Now with that said, will someone please contact Christopher Nolan and tell him to wait 5 more years and Make "The Dark Knight Returns" using all of the same actors he has for his Batman films. That would be astronomically awesome! And using Frank Miller's story (with modernization to it) and his direction, plus the actors of the 3 films????? Pure awesome! And for Warner Brothers - Money money money!!!!!
DC's problems are legendary, so it's ironic that the success of the Batman enterprise really made this current movie craze work better for Marvel. The issue that is often avoided fundamentally is that most of the Marvel characters were created more recently, and suit the contemporary movie formats better than DC's wonderful but somewhat stodgy and outdated franchises. The kitsch that their characters devolved into did not happen overnight or coincidentally, it was awkward contrast to their contradictions coming from a Golden Age era but being seen anew. So it doesn't matter that DC made Darkseid before Marvel made Thanos, because DC only did that by virtue of their good fortune in the 1970's getting Jack Kirby to bring his Marvel magic. It showed us how much Stan Lee and Kirby could work impressively alone, but were like Lennon & McCartney together. Similarly DC snagged Marv Wolfman for the Crisis, which is the same deal, a wizard from Marvel applying Marvel solutions to the DC universe, always reacting, never just being itself. It has created over the years a constant sense of desperation and movies which try too hard yet seem to hold back, e.g. Jonah Hex and Green Lantern. They waited too long for the separate movies building up to a JLA movie so that now they look pathetic trying to emulate a company which has so many advantages the only solution is to provide contrast. DC needs to focus on and celebrate its uniqueness, e.g. a stronger array of female characters, animals, and a reclaiming of its kitschiness in a postmodern context. Grodd would make a great villain, and Sam Simeon and Angel could fit in too. DC needs to remind itself and its fans that it has a huge universe. I would love a thoughtfully done JLA versus Bizarro World movie. Layer it on from Power Girl to Saturn Girl to the Black Canary and the Huntress, and make an extravaganza that continuously leads into another. Brainiac and Star Sapphire were good potential villains that have not been explored much. I would appreciate some brevity as a good dose of Superbaby. I would rather see Hawkgirl than Hawkman, and thinkin Zatana's moe fun than the Atom, Green Arrow, Aquaman, or the Red Tornado. Aliens would allow a segway to Adam Strange and Jonzz. Maybe they have to control a radioactive incident and save us from the Swamp Thing, who can eventually join the JLA after cleaning the pool. Mutant Man-Bats, gotta call Batman. Next thing you know, everyone's dog can talk and fly. Spin off Birds of Prey, the Legion, the New Teen Titans, and....ummmm....EASY CO/ROCK duh. Fight Marvel's characters with groups, a mass of expansive intertwining groups. JLA fights the Haunted Tank. Mll Marie joins the JSA. Chuck in Isis, and Rip Hunter, heck let's drag out the Challengers, Doom Patrol, Sugar & Spike, nd make Cain their dad.First mission includes killing characters i dont like, e.g. Creeper, Captain Action, the Metal Men, Metamorpho while working with Blackhawk's crew. They are making this harder than it has to be, it's like watching a blind epileptic on heroin operating on a butterfly in the wind. What if the enemy was propaganda and vigilante justice, are they smart enough to write that? Make the enemy unclear, use characters like Deadman, Spectre, and the Phantom Stranger.
You might try upping your meds.
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