Reaction to DC's Future Announcement

 In all my friend groups, I'm the superhero guy. I used to collect the comics religiously, I've seen all the movies, I know all the lore, I'm the guy that everyone turns to after the after-credits scene and asks to explain who the purple guy is with the glove. So naturally since James Gunn announced what the plans for DC is going to be in the future, multiple friends have turned to me asking my opinion on it. 

Well, let's go through the announcement and go over what they're talking about, shall we? 

Consistency

Okay I get the need to determine what's set in what universe. Marvel's been very clear about what is and isn't canon where DC has been all over the map with where everything is, so I like this. My worry would be that we get another Ezra Miller situation where a performer can't stay out of the tabloids and they have to recast across multiple platforms, but hopefully DC learned its lesson. 

Shazam and Flash

These have been slated for a while now so I'm glad they're going to use them as part of the reboot, though I wonder how much needed to be changed after the fact in the films to make this happen. But also: WHEN IS SHAZAM GOING TO FIGHT BLACK ADAM?!

Blue Beetle

They've been pushing the new Blue Beetle for years now, which gives me heavy Miles Morales/Spider-Man vibes but not in a good way. Where Miles was received well because he was a version of a popular superhero portrayed by a person of a minority, this is the same thing except: Can anyone whose not a hardcore DC fan tell me who the last Blue Beetle was? Young Justice tried to make the new Blue Beetle interesting but even they've stopped using him. 

Aquaman 2

Let's not even get into the train wrech that's been going on behind the scenes with this one, save to say that if Aquaman 2 is even the least bit coherent I'm going to die of shock. 

Creature Commandos

Are you people serious? We're going to do a comic book from the 80's that was basically Avengers meets Monster High? I guess we haven't learned our lesson from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that this just doesn't work cinematically because these characters each have such a massive cultural footprint that watering them down for a team is an injustice to them and just creates a massive mess but here we are. 

Waller

Viola Davis has been one of the best things about the DC films, so yeah let's keep her rolling around. The Peacemaker franchise is not something I could see letting kids watch so if these guys end up teaming up with Superman down the road they're could be some awkward questions around who these people are and why we care. I'm glad to see Davis coming back though. 

Superman: Legacy

And of course during this part of the presentation they show an image from Superman: All-Stars, the only Superman comic to win any awards in decades. With all the media focused on Superman's kid out I'm betting anything it's going to be a Superman/Superman Jr situation. 

Lanterns 

True Detective but with Green Lanterns... I don't even want to imagine what the budget on this thing is, and if the special effects aren't James Cameron's Avatar level it is going to be roasted by every geek in this solar system. Never forget the Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds and the digital train wreck that thing was. 

The Authority

Hay you know what this franchise needs? Even more unrecognizable characters to clutter everything up! Yaaaay! Seriously though adding these fools in is going to be DC's version of the Eternals mark my words. 

Paradise Lost

Game of Thrones but on Paradise Island... Notice he said the birthplace of Wonder Woman but did not mention Wonder Woman. I'm envisioning Gotham where they kept hinting and foreshadowing at stuff we already know about but ended up becoming a giant teasing waste of time. 

Brave and the Bold

Of course it's about Damien Wayne. You can't do anything without having Damien Wayne crawl out and start talking about how he's an assassin. I'm convinced that the whole Superman's son thing only came about so that Damien could have a playmate. As a Robin he's always been.... A thing... I get why Gunn would love him but I'm not all that excited for yet more Damien Wayne stories. 

Booster Gold

I've got to admit this one actually looks fun since I like Booster Gold and loved the old Justice League: International comics where he hung out. This could be really funny depending on who they cast as Booster and who he has to bounce off of. 

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

Who is this universe for exactly? Marvel succeeded by appealing to young and old alike, but this sounds like a space horror drama and I doubt the year it comes out many little girls are going to want to dress as PTSD riddled depressing Supergirl. 

Swamp Thing

And we round off with, of course, Swamp Thing. Haven't we tried this 2 or 3 times before and it didn't work? Every time there's talk of a new DC anything somebody always mentions bringing Swamp Thing into it and every time they do he's a bust. Put Swamp Thing back in the swamp and leave him alone. 

Obviously besides a couple small sparks I don't have a lot of hope for the DC cinematic future. I want to note though that none of this is from superhero fatigue. I've been binging the X-Men cartoons lately and played Marvel's Midnight Suns all the way through and am still hankering for more, what I'm saying though is that this announcment didn't light my superhero heart ablaze like it should have and I sincerely hope that the more that Gunn promised will do that or else this whole thing is going to be in more trouble than the Justice League can bail them out of. 

-JOE

Captain Marvel- the hero you've never heard of

I hate being asked who my favorite super hero is. See I read comic books. I can name some 500 super heroes and villains off the top of my head, so when someone asks who my favorite super hero is its not going to be someone from the most recent super hero movie, or Batman.

It’s Captain Marvel.

Whenever I mention this, weather in a geek crowd or not I almost always get a resounding “Who?” from the crowd. Since the good Captain is my favorite this makes me understandably sad. So allow me to fill you in on the ins-and-outs of one of my favorite, if least known super heroes, Captain Marvel.

Origin

Billy Batson was a happy twelve-year-old till his parents came down with a sudden case of plot convenient car accident and ended up dead. Billy was sent to live with an abusive uncle ( I think I just found a good pen pal for Harry Potter) till he was thrown out for being too pleasant or something and had to live on the streets.

Switch gears to the ancient and powerful wizard Shazam, who, after seeing that he didn’t have much time left in the mortal world, decided to summon a champion to protect the world and guard his giant floating rock. Or something. Shazam’s motives aren’t very clear, suffice it to say that he sees that Billy is still a happy, kind and good person despite his miserable circumstances   and brings him to his mystic realm. There he gives the young orphan super powers.

It so happens that Shazam’s name is actually an acronym for six deity-ish mythological beings, and that when Billy says the name he can gain their powers, as well as turn into an adult. The acronym goes:

“The wisdom of Solomon; the strength of Hercules; the stamina of Atlas; the power of Zeus; the courage of Achilles; and the speed of Mercury” –Wikipedia

So he’s essentially Superman but powered by magic and into Legos.

In case he wasn’t cool enough, Billy has the ability to share his power with others if they say his name after he electrocutes them with his magic lightning. A little narcissistic yes but it’s still cool to create an instant sidekick, of which he has two. Even Batman can’t carry around a Robin costume all the time. Marvel’s sidekicks are his long lost sister Mary Marvel and a kid he accidentally crippled while attempting to save him who calls himself Captain Marvel Jr.

So why do I like him?

Why on Earth would I say that this strange man-child with a confusing backstory and Superman’s powers carbon copied almost wholesale was my favorite? Well first off unlike most of the populace I like overpowered super heroes. I admit that Iron Man and Batman are cool, but at the end of the day if I really wanted to spend my time reading about rich men in impractical suits I’d read more Gentlemen’s Quarterly. I like my heroes to be powerful, big and able to take care of problems with their bare fists.

Second I like that Billy was chosen not because he was so awesome but just because he was so good. Billy is a virtuous, uncorrupted soul, the kind that can only be found in a child. Billy was written before every child had to have a snarky wise-cracking attitude with a reversed baseball cap. He’s just a good kid who wants to do his best, and because of that he was rewarded with an incredible gift. In some retellings of the Captain Marvel origin Billy’s virtue was meant to juxtapose Shazam’s first champion, an ancient villain named Black Adam who was given power as an adult but corrupted it and nearly destroyed the world until he was banished. I like the idea that the child’s virtue was a better asset then the adult’s supposed wisdom.

The thing I like about him most is how he’s written most of the time. Get someone who can write dialogue on Captain Marvel and the awesomeness just flows. Remember, Billy is a child inside of the super hero, so he sees the world through a child’s eyes. He thinks Batman’s cool, if a little scary, and that Superman is awesome. In DC’s sadly cancelled (May it rest in peace) cartoon Young Justice, Marvel finds himself drawn to the young team very quickly, simply because he himself is their age. It’s nice for me to see a hero who’s not trying to be the tough guy or trying so hard to be cool-Captain Marvel is just himself and that makes him cool.

Now that you’ve falling madly in love with Captain Marvel, your next question is why you haven’t heard of him. Well, that’s an interesting story. See, once upon a time magic was in in comics. Most of the Justice Society, including Green Lantern and the Flash were powered by forms of magic, and Captain Marvel fit right in. In fact, back in the day, Captain Marvel comics were the most popular comics in the world, outclassing Superman and Batman! The late Elvis Presley even liked his sidekick Captain Marvel Jr so much he based some of his stage outfits on the hero’s costume!

But magic went out of fashion to be replaced with science. Flash was no longer blessed by Hermes but a result of a lab accident, and the Green Lantern went from protecting the Star Heart to being a member of an alien police force. Sadly Captain Marvel couldn’t adapt and slowly faded into the background. Eventually when DC wanted to revise the hero they were met with opposition from the now formed Marvel Comics, who claimed copyright to the name. They won the court case so now DC can’t publish a comic titled Captain Marvel.

Within the last several years though, we’ve seen the good Captain and his friends making a comeback. Alex Ross, an extremely talented and influential comic book artist, loves Captain Marvel and writes him into every comic he can as an essential character, starting with his earth shaking Kingdom Come where a brainwashed Captain actually took on Superman. Marvel’s villain, Black Adam, was a huge part in the Villains United, which brought the character back into the spotlight, including his own book and a playable character in this year’s Injustice: Gods Among Us video game.

So that’s my hipster report of the super hero you’ve never heard of.

-JOE