Story is more than dialog. In prose and audio you have to describe more than in video or still images, but setting up a scene can be done with camera angles, poses, expressions, and other tricks unique to each media style (audio dramas can’t really use any of those). A good movie director can show you a character without a ton of exposition, which is why the phrase “show, don’t tell” exists. I may be pro-narration in comics, but there’s a time and place for narration, especially by the characters.
Author Caroline Furlong builds off of a video by YouTuber Greg Owen as he goes over the difference in how the MCU version of the Hulk and Black Widow were introduced versus Riri Williams and the ladies of Wakanda in a later movie. In the article she delves further into why the relationship between Bruce and Natasha worked despite not coming from the comics, but watch the video, too. (Also she links to one of my Daily Video posts, which was nice of her. In other news, I may have to learn how to use WordPress’ block editor.)
Originally appearing in The Brave & The Bold #25, created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, then revitalized in Legends #3 by John Ostrander, the “Suicide Squad” is the nickname for the US government group Task Force X, in the DC Universe. The idea is that supervillains can have their sentences reduced if they agree to have a bomb put in them and do certain dirty jobs for the government. If they don’t agree or try to run, their heads go boom.
Let’s be honest, though. Suicide Squad is just an excuse to cull the herd of supervillains because having them reform or just stay out of the way of superheroes apparently isn’t an option, much like how nowadays they love killing off lesser known heroes for shock value. Back when sympathizing with the villains was just an occasional story plot rather than the current “villains aren’t evil unless they don’t agree 100% with my ideology” mentality where they have to be “complex” in a way that makes them less effective as villains, there was some merit to the idea. They tended to stay in their own bubble rather than actually going after superheroes because Task Force X lead Amanda Waller has a combination paranoia/superiority complex and an ego trip. It used to be something that I, as someone who really doesn’t care about the villains, could ignore and move on with.
Now we have two live-action movies, one of which failed, an animated movie, the above anime from Warner Brothers Japan, a video game that suffered from killing the heroes combined with terrible game play, and it doesn’t stop there. Marvel Studios, continuing to not care about the source material while still adapting it wants to turn the Thunderbolts, a comic that started out about villains pretending to be heroes only to have most of them want to go straight, and becoming a team for villains seeking redemption, is now being treated as a form of Suicide Squad or maybe Secret Six. Since Gunn worked on the actually liked Suicide Squad movie and the comedy(?) spinoff with Peacemaker, signs are pointing to him trying to keep them in his DC movieverse whether it makes sense or not. After all, his wife is part of the cast.
DC Entertainment and Warner Brothers are becoming obsessed with the Suicide Squad and making them a household name, when you can’t even say “Unalive Squad” properly on the internet without some content warning popping up on some sites or a video being demonetized. Part of me wants to know why, and part of me just doesn’t care. Can we end this?
On June 25th, images from the set of James Gunn Superman movie filming in Cleveland, where creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were from so they’re at least aware of the symbolism, hit the internet. Hopefully the writing will be less symbolic and more actual story but we can only judge what we know so far when it comes to the depiction of Superman. I will say that there are less red flags than the previous Superman works the past few years, but adaptation is still up in the air.
Still, there are things I wanted to bring up about the set images (“of course, or why else would you be writing this article, you idiot!”). We have a look at the actors in character, including David Corenswet as both Clark Kent and Superman. Being my number one favorite superhero and me being a defender of the Clark Kent identity, I have thoughts, though right now I’m really just padding this out for the homepage. The big question I’m going to have for this movie is do they understand Superman and his world, or is this all based on a surface level understanding of Superman by people who see the “super” but not the “man”, and so do whatever they want with the Daily Planet staff, the Kent clan, and the last days of Krypton and the House Of El? Well, I can’t pad this out any more than this, so let’s look at the pictures, courtesy of X-Twitter user(s) DCU Updates.
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