James Gunn’s DC Universe Gets More Confusing

Being happy the Snyderverse is over doesn’t mean being happy with its replacement.

James Gunn took over the DC movies and shows along with Peter Safran, but Gunn is the face and possibly vision driver behind what DC Studios puts out, hence why his stuff is the Gunnverse. Even if he’s not working on it himself, it’s done with his blessing and his vision…or it would be if his vision made a lick of sense, and it doesn’t.

Comic Book Movie recently reported on yet another argument that James Gunn has had with a DC superhero fan who doesn’t care for his direction, or possibly can’t make sense of it. Actually, going to his actual Threads post he was responding to someone else’s response to the original post.

Reading the post both Gunn and the replier he’s replying to has a fair point, but it misses the larger problem with the current crop of DC Studios projects. No, you don’t have to build up to something, but we have to understand if it’s doing that or not. There needs to be a clear vision, and right now that is something that is clearly lacking because what we see is a pile of contradictions.

The original post went:

I’m not trying to be a hater, just trying to understand. So Gunn’s foundation to his DC Universe is.

• Superman
• Peacemaker (series)
• Supergirl
• Creature Commandos (animated series)
• Clayface
• Lanterns (series)

What is this building towards?

Since this original post, 1 of 2, is an image I don’t know what the original post was or where it came from. It could be Threads or it could be from some other source entirely. Not being signed in to Threads, I can’t even copy/paste from actual posts and I don’t know if I can embed the post like I can with X-Twitter or Facebook on this site. The first response is from lotuslandcomics:

I see a lot of comments like this. Gunn doesn’t have to build towards anything if the individual pieces work on their own. But if they crossover at some point, presumably like in Man Of Tomorrow, cool that’s awesome. I think the MCU reprogrammed people’s expectations.

Gunn’s reply to lotusland comics was:

I couldn’t agree more. DCU is just an alternate universe; we can enter at any location or time and tell THAT story. I dislike the idea that individual stories aren’t meaningful unless they lead to something else. People not understanding this is strange to me, because Star Wars has essentially been doing this for 50 years across movies, shows, games and books, admittedly without the tonal variety. Now, this doesn’t mean there isn’t connectivity.

The Lanterns show could use a few lanterns. Or at least a flashlight.

Really? Where? Sharing an actor, like when Nathan Fillion plays Guy Gardner in both James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn and Green-Is-Stupid Lanterns? That’s rather lazy connectivity. It’s why some people believe the 90s Marvel cartoon was in a shared universe despite no signs of any other connections during the rare crossover. Fox Kids’ Spider-Man and X-Men never seem to match up beyond the one crossover story where Peter tries to go to Professor X for help stopping the Man-Spider mutation only for them to misunderstand how different Peter’s mutation is from what the X-Men fight for. The Hulk showed up in the Fantastic Four cartoon as part of Marvel Action Hour, but didn’t even have the same VA when he showed up in the UPN series, where Robert Hays reprised his Tony Stark (sorry, RDJ, but Hays was best Tony when he had GOOD scripts to work with–ignore season 1 and just watch season 2!). If that’s what you’re doing, it’s lazy but it’s fine. It means even the Aligned continuity in Transformers was better connected, and that was a mess.

The problem is they’ve never said none of the other projects are connected, except for Matt Reeves’s The Batman, the sequel currently in production that had to switch directors due to a personal crisis (which went poorly for the Snyderverse’s Justice League…not that Snyder’s actual cut was worth it from everything I’ve heard), and The Penguin. They might have been good but also had too many adaptation errors for me to bother with, but that doesn’t matter here. Reeves wouldn’t let his movies and show be part of the Gunnverse, meaning they don’t have a Batman yet…though they already have one of his villains and are planning to do another, so explain how that works to me. A lot of Batman Minus Batman out there. Apparently The Penguin takes place in the same continuity as his Batman movies.

But what continuity does any of Gunn’s movies fit into?

Peacemaker was supposed to be part of the Snyderverse, but the moment the Gunnverse replaced the Snyderverse suddenly it’s over there now and in continuity with his Superman. He even claimed that the reason James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn hit HBO Max early was because it was necessary to understand what was happening in season 2 of Peacemaker. Fans who suffered both might strongly disagree, but it does mean Gunn prioritized the show he wanted to make over the movie he didn’t, which is not a good way to run a shared universe…if it’s shared at all?

No, we don’t need to build up to some major story. Marvel Studios seemingly ending that practice in the MCU is the least of its problems, and the recent phase just seems to be a collection of stories. However, they still feel like they shared a universe. There are different tones, and many of them terrible as they helped coin the negative term “Marvel Humor”, where they can’t let a dramatic moment hold longer than the time it takes to come up with some lame joke or meta joke. “That happened” needs to STOP happening. Lotuslandcomics (or whomever runs their discount Twitter account) is right that they don’t need to build up to some big event. Eventitis is problem enough in the comics.

Sad Superman is sad.

However, the current DC doesn’t feel connected to each other outside of the comics they seem to ignore if not outright despise. (Media pecking order again.) There is no shared tone, no sense that these things are happening in the same reality, no sense that anything’s anymore connected that Superman: The Movie and its sequels and Tim Burton’s Batman and his and Joel Schumacher’s sequels. Somebody shows up in a cameo but the reason none of it matters in any larger sense that there is no larger sense. It’s more like they were too lazy to get anyone else to play the role or create a new outfit, so they just pretended they shared a universe until the cameo was over. It’s more like crossing dimensions than crossing the street. The voice actors for Creature Commandos are supposed to be playing their live-action counterparts (though probably more CG than make-up or costumes, so they’re still just voice acting), but does anything in any of these shows and movies feel like they have any impact elsewhere? Not only in a big lead-up event but in anything? Gunn’s “Superman” movie looks more like a team-up movie while the next one is supposed to be focused on Lex and still trying to get as many characters in as possible, like they’re making their own Doomsday. (Yes, I know, not him.)

Kara shows up in some mid-credit scene and then her movie doesn’t look like it matters. The Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle is the same one from the movie that failed (but beat Supergirl) and that film wasn’t in either Snyder OR Gunn’s continuities. If we finally do get a Gunnverse Batman, will he meet Clayface? Because it wasn’t part of Reeves’ “grounded” Batman take. Marvin Montanaro over at Geeks & Gamers made a good point about all this.

Genre diversity is not inherently a problem. DC Comics has supported everything from detective mysteries to cosmic adventures for decades.

The problem arises when the franchise’s creative identity becomes difficult to recognize.

For example, Lanterns received considerable criticism for its treatment of Hal Jordan, including major departures from the character’s traditional heroic portrayal. Gunn previously responded to those complaints by defending the creative freedom of this adaptation.

Meanwhile, the decision to introduce Clayface before establishing the DCU’s Batman raises another legitimate question about priorities.

These aren’t necessarily complaints about insufficient crossover setup. They’re concerns about characterization, storytelling, and the studio’s approach to some of the most recognizable intellectual properties in entertainment.

Yet Gunn’s latest response reduces the discussion largely to whether individual stories need to lead somewhere else.

It’s not that it needs to lead somewhere. It’s that we don’t know where that “somewhere” is? Are they in the same universe? Different universes but they occasionally crossover with little to no explanation like Japan’s Ultraman series? (I can never tell what universe each of the Ultramen are in and why there are so many different anti-kaiju organizations that may or may not know what an “Ultraman” is.) They share actors, but no tone, no sense of interconnectivity beyond “look whose here”, and can’t even agree what their target age group is. I know Hollywood hates kids despite Gunn’s seeming immaturity, but the only offering from them was the bred swapped Krypto in a series of shorts where he fails at being a good dog. The Scott Jeralds-made cartoon series was better. Nothing else is for kids but I can’t tell who it was made for or what goes with what? It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from different puzzles that are supposed to fit together but don’t.

We complain about Gunn’s vision because he doesn’t seem to have one. It’s a free-for-all except when it isn’t. Everyone can make whatever they want without thinking about where it connects to anyone else, but then we’re supposed to pretend they all exist in the same continuity. There’s no rhyme or reason to what they’re putting out. The cartoons are part of the live-action show, but then there are the Batman animated movies that don’t even fit in the same continuity together. Unless you want to tell me that the Knightfall adaptation is in the same reality as Aztec Batman. You’d have better luck convincing me Batwheels does, while the Reevesverse is the only one officially referred to by the comics’ “Elseworlds” tagging and are the only thing that does connect to each other.

Batman’s looking to get as far away from James Gunn as he can.

I haven’t even gotten into all the cancelled projects announced as part of “Gods & Monsters”, which was their version of Marvel’s “phases”, which Gunn and Safran seem to have abandoned. We were told video games were supposed to be part of this. Not even an announcement of one in production. The current merger process with Skydance and their Paramount holds has raised even more questions they seem to be waving off.

James Gunn needs to chose a road and commit to the destination. You want to make a series of unconnected movies and shows? Fine, but don’t suddenly decide they are connected when it suits your fancy and then disconnect them again. Don’t have shows change universes because you’re in charge now and then swear it doesn’t matter when it benefits story 2, bring them back together in story 3 but still not feel like it shares DNA with story 1. The Gunnverse is a debris field of continuities and it’s not the one with multiversal incursions as a plot point. That’s what we’re trying to understand, James. We can’t figure out where you’re going if we don’t even know what your starting point is.