With the Justice League movie threatening promising to hit theatres soon, I thought it’d be fun to do a little “Elseworlds” thought experiment. Comics are fond of ‘parallel universe’ stories, where our world is presented in a slightly altered form to compare and contrast with. In DC comics they’re often called “Elseworld” stories, such as “Communist Superman“, “Victorian Batman“, “Wild West Justice League“…
In that spirit, here’s my Elseworlds tale: what if Marvel movies sucked and DC ones were popular? In that Elseworlds:
- Ben Affleck’s Batman trilogy is wrapped up in 2013 after a good start, weak sequel (to set up Justice League) and strong third showing
- Can audiences learn to love an earnest, pure-hearted superhero wearing red and blue tights? The Russo Brother’s Superman trilogy emphatically said yes
- Joss Whedon’s Justice League (2012) blowns audiences away. Lex Luthor is perfectly cast and recurs as a character in several future DCCU movies
- Benedict Cumberbatch gains praise for his entertaining portrayal of obscure character Dr. Fate
- After the underwhelming Justice League: Age of Amazo, the teaser for Justice League: New Gods leaves Comic Con’s Hall H stunned and awed
- (Josh Brolin is playing Darkseid, of course)
- Gina Rodriguez’s fans are complaining that Hawkgirl still hasn’t been given a movie yet, despite being in two Justice League movies!
- On the other hand, Stephen Amell’s Justice League TV spinoff, Green Arrow, is going strong
- Brandon Routh sees his shot at redemption after Superman Returns with a big-budget Atom movie. The shrinking superhero gets mediocre reviews after some controversy with Edgar Wright
- This April sees the release of Legion of Superheroes Vol. 2 to critical acclaim
- This July sees the release of Shazam: Homecoming after DC finally secured the film rights to their beloved teen superhero
- After two underwhelming Wonder Woman movies, the trailer for Taika Waititi’s Wonder Woman: Clash of the Titans actually looks super fun!
- Agents of STAR, a TV show set in the DCCU, finds its niche after a rocky start
- Powerless, an office comedy about a superhero insurance company set in the DC universe, is cancelled aft-oh wait that actually happened.
- Gotham still sucks
And on the Marvel side:
- Man of Iron is just… bad
- Captain America: Civil War forces Rotten Tomatoes to re-define its badness scale to count how bad it is. The conflict ends when Iron Man finds out Captain America’s dad is called Howard… The Duck
- Somehow a Masters of Evil movie gets made. Jared Leto’s Doctor Doom is panned as being the worst incarnation of the character ever
- Captain Marvel is awesome! Avengers is re-tooled to have as much of her as possible in it. Speaking of…
- Joss Whedon is brought in to script doctor Zac Snyder’s Avengers movie at the last minute. Mere months from its release it’s not looking good for the tentpole movie
- The Thor movie is on its third director, two years behind schedule. Is re-named Ragnarok to set up the destruction/reset button of the whole universe
- A flood of various movies based on minor characters are announced. No one knows what the hell is going on. It’s just a big mess…
The moral of the story here is: DC, get your shit together! Look how deep into your insane continuity you could be by now! Marvel made us feel feels for Rocket Raccoon and Groot, but you’re nowhere near Matter-Eater Lad, you’re still stuck on ‘Batman and Superman are friends’. I want to see the look on respectable critics’ faces when they have to take Granny Goodness seriously! But you have a long way to go to reach that point! I hope you figure it out.