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Why does Warners always feel the need to tweak Flash’s costume to the point of being unrecognizable? It’s such an iconic costume on its own and doesn’t need much done to it. I actually like everyone else’s though.

Brilliant idea; and are we assured that the royalty payment for the late Michael Turner’s published art will go to his estate? Just say it.

[…] The Justice League #1 variant will be sold individually, and as a set — which also includes Turner’s black and white sketch — exclusively through Aspen Comics. Pre-orders begin at 9 a.m. Pacific on June 26 on AspenComics.com. Both  Turner’s Batman #1 and Justice League #1 will also be available in limited quantities at the Aspen Comics booth (#2321) at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 21 to July 24. You can see the color version of the cover down below: [Comics Beat] […]

I hope Justice League is a better movie, for sure, but there’s a lot that’s disingenuous here. Snyder was pushing for an R rating, so there is no shock that his Superman movie was no good for 8 year olds.

Honestly, my real hope was that he was banished from touching anything with a cultural value. Let him make his own crap R rated films.

If he proves he understands grown up feelings, we can take the baby out of the corner.

The fact that Snyder can’t properly articulate what lessons were learned by BvS is a bad sign.

So… how is a PG-13 movie suitable for an 8-year-old?

Thankfully, DC is releasing a DC Super Hero Girls DVD this summer…

@TA,
That’s the wrong question to ask given the history of the characters and property. The right question WB should have asked prior to release is: “How is a PG-13 movie (much less an R) suitable for Superman and that character’s audience?” In seeking the answer, the reaction and movie’s performance would have not been a surprise.

Silly but True

Snyder’s kind of a lost cause. This whole debacle has moved his work from harmless schlock to avoid-at-all-costs.

Jesus…so clueless.

“my hardcore take on characters as far as I love ’em, and I love the material. I do, I take it really deep.”

This is probably a true statement from Snyder. He may very well love the characters but not as an adult loves the joys of his or her youth. He loves them with the perverse fixation of the overgrown adolescent who never developed emotionally beyond thinking how cool it would be if Superman fried somebody’s eyeballs with his Heat Vision.

DC should just call itself “Bloodlines Comics” to better reflect where its priorities are (spoiler: stuck in 1993).

Survivors’ Club and Last Gang in Town ended last week.

Slash & Burn, by virtue of Vertigo’s lowest-selling title for April 2016, ended that month.

Seriously — are trade sales of Doctor Fate what keeps that book going? Paul — come back to the Legion!

I’m curious why Midnighter and Martian Manhunter, both great books that are being cancelled, are being kicked to the curb while Doctor Fate, selling worse than both of those, is apparently continuing post Rebirth? Makes no sense. Maybe you’re right, Steve, and it’s trades sell well?

RE: Green Lantern: Edge of Oblivion – I am still for about the 3rd month wondering why the numbers for GL: Lost Army are not included in the past counts.

As for Bloodlines, I remain convinced that DC has to do things with titles every once in a while for some reason in the family of trademarks/copyrights. There are too many times when older names get thrown out for no reason. Like “Star-Spangled Comics featuring G.I.Zombie” – why not just “G.I.Zombie”?

Hopefully, Affleck will be in at least three more films, counting that possible solo movie. He arguably has provided the best live-action portrayal of both Batman and Bruce Wayne that we have seen to date.

I finally saw it, and it’s OK. Not a great movie, but not awful either. I thought it was a better movie than Man of Steel or The Dark Knight Rises (two movies I really disliked). There were things in B v S I disliked — starting with Henry Cavill’s glum, downbeat Superman, who seems to view helping mankind as an unpleasant burden — but these things I liked:

1. Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. As you’ve probably heard, she steals every scene she’s in. Bring on the WW solo movie! Gadot doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but she’s so visually striking it doesn’t matter. (She looks a bit like Angelina Jolie, who probably would have played the role a decade ago.)

2. Ben Affleck’s middle-aged, melancholy Batman. He’s pretty much perfect.

3. Seeing Bill Finger FINALLY credited as Batman’s co-creator — even though the credit makes him look like Bob Kane’s assistant. (“Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger.”) But at least he finally got a credit. God knows how much legal red tape had to be untangled for this to happen.

I’ll probably think of other things to praise later, but these were the first 3 things that came to mind.

Sounds like DC’s try-hard was turned up to 11 and they managed to do enough. This “strength” might include a fair bit of smoke and mirrors, which is even worse than failure as many might pin their fortunes to something that has the veneer of success but isn’t actually comprised of it.

What my man, Tim, is trying to say is that It sucked but it sure did look pretty doing it. While I respect Ben for his efforts, he just wasn’t the Bat. The story line, if you can call it that, was scattered and painfully redundant. We all know by now what planet Superman is from and how Batman’s mommy and daddy got shot in that bum-ass alley cause they don’t know what a Daimler limousine is, I guess. We don’t need to waste the first 3o minutes of every DC movie retelling the same origin crap over and over except this time daddy has a mustache. If people don’t know by now why waste the time and money. They’re probably not the ones that are going to see the film anyway. DC just has to except the fact that Marvel is the franchise authority. They literally have it all. Especially the writing. Jesus H, the script had to have been downright awful Oh, and Lex Luthor was shite. The casting director should be shot in that same alley along with Batmom and Batdad and the bloody script.

5 Things Need to Happen on “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”5 Things Need to Happen on “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”
http://zharazhar.blogspot.co.id/2016/03/5-things-need-to-happen-on-batman-v.html

Interesting take:

“The Dark Knight Returns smashed Batman and Superman. The book was intended to tell the last Batman story, and to use it as the blueprint for a whole new universe seems bizarre at best. Here’s our new superhero franchise, and we’re going to start it off by taking notes from a story that explains why superheroes are synonymous with fascism. Let’s get really violent to prove it to you.”

birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/02/24/r-rated-superhero-stories-are-inherently-revisionist

Batman vs. Superman will probably open at Number One, as most superhero movies do (except maybe Ant-Man). If it quickly fades — or, worse, fails to take the top box-office spot — heads will likely roll at Warners.

With all the speculation over B vs S, little attention is being paid to Captain America: Civil Wars, which opens two months later. I haven’t seen much enthusiasm for this movie, except among the most hardcore superhero geeks. A lot of people were disappointed in the Avengers sequel (which quickly faded), and Civil Wars looks like more of the same.

Marvel took a small, but real hit last year in the lessened box office for Age of Ultron (which admittedly, it’s a hard hill to climb to best the first film’s gross) and Ant-Man, which just barely was able to squeak past Captain America: The First Avenger on some relatively decent legs.

Civil War has quite a few elements in its favor, Iron Man and the new Spider-Man namely. But weirdly, Marvel still hasn’t really played that card on the latter. That may be the final marketing push is my guess.

For what it’s worth, the schedule benefits Batman v Superman more, as Civil War has an X-Men movie right on its heels towards the end of May.

Interesting article from L.A. Review of Books arguing that comics’ “dark and gritty” era began not in the 1980s with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, but in the 1970s. That’s when Batman went back to being a grim avenger, and violent antiheroes like Wolverine and the Punisher were introduced — all of them influenced by movie characters played by Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson.

Spider-Man failing to save his girlfriend’s life (in 1973) was also pretty dark.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/when-were-superheroes-grim-and-gritty

[…] Beat – WB preps Justice League for an April start date – You mean all those reports that Warner Bros. was in chaos was full of […]

Finally… I hope

“Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, Phil Jimenez, and Gary Frank.”

Party like it’s 2006, DC!

Interesting. 11 minutes is how long a number of their shows run – Adventure Time, Teen Titans Go, Steven Universe (I think) – it seems like that’s Cartoon Network’s standard unit of programming these days.

Here’s hoping that Aquaman appears on the show, is voiced by John DiMaggio, and says “Outrageous!” If they get the best version of Aquaman to ever appear in any media ever on the show then I’ll be happy…

I like how they added red to Superman’s belt, it almost makes up for the red that went away with his trunks.

“(despite seemingly retiring from the role, this, along with his return in the Arkham Knight videogame, seems to walk that back)”

Come on, Beat. His declaration was obviously a ploy to keep the best twist of Arkham Knight a secret, which paid off well.

Short attention span, moronization of children by the school system = 11 minutes

@JC Lebourdais: A typical Bugs Bunny cartoon is 6-10 minutes. Short cartoons are not a new development, and neither does a short running time mean that a cartoon is stupid or low-quality.

I think you’d like Bugs. He had trouble using the word “moron” correctly too.

Those are some rough looking numbers for the second biggest company. Hopefully, the indies get to pick up the slack. DC’s June new books seem like a distant memory already…

“Was this ever announced as being cancelled?”

It starts its next arc in 2016 according to the last story page of Suiciders #6.

I’m curious to see some books like Batgirl and Justice League United lost about a quarter of their sales across the Convergence break. Did the fans who drifted away while the books were on hiatus simply outnumber new readers willing to give those continuing titles a try with the DCYou promotion? One presumes there were some new readers, with sales on titles from Justice League and Superman to Gotham Academy being up significantly the first month after Convergence.

@Carl: Both Batgirl & JLU had freely-orderable variants before the Convergence break, but when they resumed they lost their f.o.v.s.

I sincerely hope they don’t bring Nightwing back. Grayson is the first time I’ve read a Dick Grayson-solo book (where he wasn’t Batman) that I thought was actively very good. As a matter of fact, it might be DC’s best standard superhero book currently.

Returning to status quo here seems like a bad move, I mean, does Nightwing really move units either? The numbers you have are for #1 and #0, but what was the end of the Higgins run doing?

@Kyle: The lowest that the New 52 Nightwing series ever sold was 36,814 (the penultimate issue, #29), and that was without the benefit of a freely-orderable variant. Near the end of its run it appeared to be stabilizing in the mid- to upper-30K range.

The pre-New 52 Nightwing series generally sold around 30K in the latter part of its run, more (sometimes much more) when it was part of a Batman crossover. The lowest figure that I have for it was 28,363 for issue #137 in Oct 2007 (my sales data only goes back to 2001).

“Perhaps it is time to bring Nightwing back?”

Dear comicbook Godz, please! I dig Dick Grayson but, I’m pretty sick of super-spy Agent 37. I read about Dick Grayson because he’s Batman’s sidekick that grew into his own heroic identity, not because he’s some lame 007/Tom Cruise rip-off.
Also the fanservice on this book is ridiculous. I can’t imagine if this was a book with a female protagonist.

@rikk Odinson – why try to imagine? There have been tons of books that treated its female characters like Grayson does its male. The fact that its actually doing it with a male character is what is novel. And that’s OK – men have had it good for a while, we can take it.

Regarding low sales on Harley Quinn and Power Girl compared to the regular Harley series – perhaps this can be taken as a statement of the power of “ongoing” vs. “mini series” – ?

Glenn Simpson—Uh, because it’s still wrong? I thought comics were trying to be more inclusive and respectful but because it’s a male character that makes it okay? I’m not some whiny butt-hurt fan that can’t handle it but I am a comics fan that thinks it’s highly hypocritical to call out sexism on female characters while praising the same behavior on male characters. That’s not progress. It’s just shifting the paradigm to another sex.

A bit surprised that I had to click through to 2 sites to find out the price of these.

“Wonder Woman and Justice League now have filming start dates”

“So, not really specific dates here actually, but more like time-frames”

—so, not really specific facts, just click bait headlines…I’m embarrassed for you—again…

Starting dates means very little as the process of making a film starts long before the actual filming starts and ends long after that initial round of filming happens, I agree with the first later that this post is pretty much useless. As are all similar posts are.

Gotta keep feeding the superhero hype machine, guys…

Are those release dates confirmed, or still tentative. (Box Office Mojo has those two films as “not scheduled”.)

TOUGH CROWD.

Every source is reporting the same two dates as confirmed based on WB’s shareholder calendar, whether that’s accurate or not…we’ll find out eventually, I guess.

Jay Baruchel as Max Lord?!? Maybe I just don’t have the imagination but I cannot conceive of a way that would have ever worked.

I’m waiting for the documentary about why Terry Gilliam’s WATCHMEN never happened. Or one about why James Cameron’s SPIDER-MAN didn’t get made.

As for that Justice League movie, all the proposed actors skewed really young. They seemed to be casting a Teen Titans movie.

We don’t need this documentary and I don’t think it will get made.
The MIller JLA film didn’t happen for a sipmle reason. the script was awful. Awful. impossibly unbelievably bad. You don’t need a 2 hour documentary to realize that.

read teh script yourself.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4tilNmOgu5TRk9VMHU2QVdsaWc/edit

@AwesomeDude: I know it’s right there in the headline, but I don’t see a documentary about an aborted film as being limited to the “Why didn’t this get made?” question. There are plenty of other questions — what would it have looked like, how far did it get? — that could make for a fascinating subject even if the movie itself was spectacularly wrongheaded. Which is the entire idea behind the Superman Lives documentary — yes, the movie looks like it would have been a mess, but messes can still be really interesting to watch.

“The MIller JLA film didn’t happen for a sipmle reason. the script was awful.”

Lots of movies with awful scripts get made and become box-office hits. The Transformers movies, for instance.

Wait a minute…

So people scream and yell about sexism in comics when a male draws Spider-Woman sexy, yet this cover of men as pieces of meat/strippers is just good fun? Where is the outrage? Why isn’t the internet screaming for the head of Emanuela Lupacchino or DC?

@tim

I don’t know, man. Lately I have been realizing that everything in life is hypocrisy.

So, which hero on the cover is the drug dealer?

No Suicide Squad? Shazam? Cyborg?

Catwoman would have been better with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

Does anyone know where the Wizard of Oz poster came from? It’s not iconic, and I can’t find anything except an advert.

Some of the artists aren’t well chosen. If you’re going to use a photographic or realistic poster, then the cover artist should have a clean, realistic style.
Batman & Robin, Green Lantern fail. Too sketchy.

Did any of the movie poster designers/artists get a design fee?
Credit?
An offer to recreate their iconic poster?

Too bad they couldn’t schedule this for February, during the Oscars…

Hmmm… two of the covers are based on comic book movies, neither of which are DC properties.

All but “Bill & Ted” are owned by WB.

Other/Better iconic posters:
A Christmas Story
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
Ace Ventura
A Clockwork Orange
Blazing Saddles
Singing in the Rain

@Tim
Well, for one thing, the guys aren’t massively contorted in order to expose and enhance their sexual characteristics, thus helping reducing them (and their gender) to that dimension of their being. Secondly, even if that were the case, such portrayals aren’t all that frequent and exist in a continuum of other accepted and expected ways to portray the male form. Which isn’t the case for the female one, which is what makes this cover all in good fun and the Spider-Woman (and countless others) one problematic.

That Justice League cover might be the gayest thing ever made, and I say that as a compliment.

Poor Tim, you contorted even more than I thought was possible in order to try to highlight a false hypocrisy. MRA unite, amirite? !?!?!?!

@ Wonder Woman #40 inspired by 300, with cover art by Bill Sienkiewicz
I’m sure it’ll look fine, but I’m disappointed that DC, even with a fun promotion like this, continues to head Wonder Woman in the direction of a blood-splattered, low-rent Xena. Kick ass women in battle are great, but it would be nice to see a lighter, fresher take every once in a while (like the recent Gilbert Hernandez story). Why not Wonder Woman in ‘Maleficent’, with Big Barda in ‘Thelma and Louise’ or even ‘The Princess Diaries’?

Wow. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that DC and the artists actually had some fun coming up with these covers. Huh.

@Jose de Leon – Might have been gayer; DC could have gotten the lovely Joe Phillips to handle it. ;) But yeah, these sound like fun overall.

@Charile Ryan
Is Big Barda in the Wonder Woman comic? (I’ve only read the first issue of the reboot.)

As for the movie posters you suggest, one is MGM, and the other two are Disney, owners of Marvel.
Since DC seems to have concentrated on WB properties (aside from Bill and Ted), those are unlikely to have been used.

Thelma & Louise would work, if the landscape is replaced with an island.

Some more suggestions:
Giant
Ben-Hur
The Right Stuff
Deliverance (Either the “eyeball” design, or the silhouetted procession)
Network (for Shazam)
Dog Day Afternoon
Barry Lyndon
Inception
Blade Runner

Hypocrite.

Love it! But Heidi? The greatest film of the 21st century? I too loved the strip scenes, but the major arch of the film sees one drugged out stripper induct someone new to take their place so he can take off with the new guys sister, to start life anew! What? There was no consequence to turning the girl’s brother into a drugged out stripper… I found it very concerning, and then they danced some more.

Straight white men don’t really have much to worry about – a poke here and there won’t hurt them.
I say this as a straight white man.

Insecure and clueless straight male trolls have plenty to worry about, but it’s mostly their own internal problems. The emotionally sound ones have little to fear.

And yes, that JL cover – nice as it is – could have been substantially gayer if Joe Phillips had done it. (He’s pretty busy these days, but it would’ve been worth asking him. Or Stephen Sadowski, or Phil Jimenez. For starters.) I’ve never drawn for DC, but I daresay I might even have improved upon the gaiety quotient a bit myself. :)

women are like children. they dont understand the double standard. dont get upset, let them have their candy, so they shut up and dont cry about it. also, if you dont make a fuss, you might get laid, and then who cares about any of this

Millar’s remarks seem to have a “hire me, hire me!” subtext to them. THAT is his argument? That characters created past as certain time can’t have good movies made about them? Tell that to Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Zorro, dufus.

Millar’s remarks seem to have a “hire me, hire me!” subtext to them. THAT is his argument? That characters created past a certain time can’t have good movies made about them? Tell that to Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Zorro, dufus.

I think any of these type of movies biggest problem is when they try to make these movies by committee instead of finding someone (or an already established team of people) with a singular vision and passion for the material and just let them do their thing. Spider-Man 3 failed because they took the reigns away from Raimi for the most part. Green Lantern felt like a script by committee and directed by a guy who was looking for a paycheck.

Something Donner, Burton, Singer, Nolan, and Whedon have all seemed to proven is that when you let these people do their jobs they come out with something that is both creatively satisfying for the artists involved and financially successful for the studio. The Studios have to be less concerned with getting the director from that last big blockbuster and writer of that last big blockbuster and more concerned with people who have a real and true dedication to the material itself.

“Concern trolling” is right on. Ha! He makes those comments knowing full well that a movie about a talking tree who only speaks one word and a gun toting raccoon is the most anticipated movie of the next several years.

It’s pretty clear that what Warner Bros needs to do is let 2nd and 3rd tier DC characters go to other studios for films. They get a little money, no hassle and don’t have to worry if the films bomb. But if a Plastic Man comedy or a Challengers of the Unknown summer blockbuster or a Doom Patrol indy flick were to hit it big at the box office, it would smooth the way for Warner bringing out the big guns.

Mike

What MBunge suggests worked for Marvel with Men In Black and Blade, and got them turned around from The Comic Company That Has Never Made A Good Movie Ever toward what they are now.

Hold to the long game, people. It wasn’t that long ago that DC was breaking all-time movie release records by sticking to its iconic characters at the same time Marvel was *****ing out stuff not even worthy of direct-to-video market. “We’ve got these great, iconic characters! But he doesn’t have a skull on his chest. Oh, the wonderful skull is there. Look closely at the knife hilt. Fans will know it’s him.”. They realized it and corrected course. It took them years, but that’s finally paid off.

DC could actually be worse off; better nothing than their own Hoff-tastic Nick Fury, Capt. America, or Fantastic Four.

I would be happy if WB just had some sort of game plan. If it exists I’ve seen no evidence of it. Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder can only do so much, so there needs to be a plan that cultivates a series of movies that bring a level of entertainment and sophistication (something both DARK KNIGHT and WATCHMEN accomplished) to DC properties.

If would also urge DC/WB to continue its push into TV in the same manner they have done with SMALLVILLE and ARROW.

There is plenty of material still to mine for the WB Animation movies and short subjects. I’m going to keep screaming it until someone hears me – WE WANT A GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT ANIMATED MOVIE! Animation is an area where DC/WB can really shine as they have kicked Marvel’s ass when it comes to the quality of their cartoons. They just need to amp up the level of experimentation and creativity they’ve put forth thus far. GOTHAM KNIGHTS is an excellent example of the kind of project that costs little but yields great returns. Providing different directors/studios carte blanche to create their vision of Batman is energizing.

Now if they could just bring that to the big screen again as they did with the 1st Batman movie, MASK OF THE PHANTASM.

DC is sitting on a few goldmines that if done correctly could be major box office winners! I break it up in three phases.
My picks for huge Hollywood success are Shazam! Plastic Man, Spectre, and Metal Men.’If I am DC I start trying to mine these great underdeveloped characters.
Next up we turn to Jack Kirby`s DC characters.
These would include New Gods,Demon and Kamandi.
Now the Vertigo picks which would be Sandman,Starman,Hitman,Preacher and a Hellblazer reboot.
If DC followed my advice they would be giving my favorite comic book publisher Marvel a run, but what will happen will be a mediocre JLA reboot that will be so bad that they will scrap all future DC Comic movies other than Batman and Superman movies.
respectfully
“The Amazing Spam’
Make Mine Marvel!

If DC had any brains, they’d turn the live-action franchise over to Bruce Timm and Brad Bird and get the hell out of the way.

The way they’ve been running both the film and print areas though (i.e, into the ground), shows that they don’t have any brains.

I can’t fault the WB people too much for their concept problems. To people who don’t read comics, the DC superheroes are probably kids’ comics icons who make people think of Super Friends cartoons. Putting them in a movie with a plot that will appeal to adults and young adults who don’t read comics isn’t easy.

Can anyone actually imagine Superman, for example, cursing as with “Oh, shit!” Or would he say “Great Rao!” For viewers who want a movie with a storyline, just seeing the characters up on the screen isn’t enough.

SRS

You know those movies like Die Hard or Back to the Future that are mainstays of TV movie re-runs because everyone loves them? Iron Man is one of those films and it’s one of the films in large part because of Robert Downey Jr.

That’s why he’s on the center of one Avengers poster and the other makes sure to feature him as Tony Stark alongside a shot of Iron Man (because you can’t see his face in the armor).

Neither Green Lantern nor the upcoming Man of Steel has that guy. And if they want to (in my opinion wrongly) include Nolan’s Batman films in their cinematic universe then all they’ve got there is Heath Ledger’s Joker and he’s both not a hero and his actor is not with us anymore.

Re Sandman. Isn’t it been optioned by Gaiman who controls the rights for the characters to HBO? I know his American Gods is being developed as a HBO series.

“DC could actually be worse off; better nothing than their own Hoff-tastic Nick Fury, Capt. America, or Fantastic Four.”

I’m guessing you haven’t seen the Justice League TV movie.

Sadly, I think the DC/ Warners execs think just like Millar – “These characters are lame”. The lack of confidence shows when relaunching your line of comics books with a New 52 you hire writers already on staff and scribes from the good ol’ 90′s. The success of the Nolan Batman movies furthers this due to the grounded approach Nolan took. That shows a lack of understanding what made the Bat films good in the first place. It’s very much “The Watchmen effect”, great creators taking a more mature or grounded approach to superheroes and the company’s only take away from that is to go “grim and gritty”.

As weird as it may sound, i think the general populace knows the Justice League more so the Avengers despite the massive film from last year. Whether it be from Super Friends or Donner’s Superman or Burton’s Batman or Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman or the most effectively named superhero that sums him up clearly (The Flash) or the DCAU shows that featured the other members of the JLA’s big 7 or the joke that with the right touch would be king that is Aquaman, people know this characters. Some call it dated. Others could call it sustainability.