It hasn’t been long since DC rebooted its entire universe. Prior to James Gunn taking over, DC was in a mess, and it didn’t matter if Marvel shelled out a poor project; it still managed to remain the top superhero franchise.
Since James Gunn has been working with DC and taken over, the franchise has released a full season of Peacemaker (with a second one currently airing at the time of writing), Penguin (separate universe and not done by Gunn but still part of DC), and also his first movie in Superman. So far, it’s been fantastic. It hasn’t let me down once, and some of these are projects that simply shouldn’t work in hindsight.
If you explained to somebody who’s a non-comic fan and told them about Peacemaker, for example, they’d likely switch off. He doesn’t sound interesting, but James Gunn made the series interesting and made the character interesting as well.
This is why I’m super excited for the future of DC. After their atrocious run, it was time to refresh, and it came at the right time. Marvel hasn’t quite hit the heights it hopes for post-Endgame. There’s been some incredible projects, sure, but the overall aspect of the franchise has felt dim for the most part.
There is some exciting stuff coming for Marvel in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday, but with DC just starting again, it’s like the first phase of Marvel at the moment. Now, of course, it can all go catastrophically wrong; however, it’s like that with any project.
Superman was fantastic. I loved Fantastic Four as well, and it’s hard to separate which is the better project. Superman’s movie introduced us to Supergirl, which will be the next movie for Gunn moving forward, and Milly Alcock looks made for that role.
I’m writing this as a huge Marvel fan. I’ve always preferred the Marvel franchise over DC. It feels weird at the moment due to the fact that it feels like DC is cooking something special. James Gunn has already teased the Justice League, and they’re right at the start here. They can bring out some movies slowly over a period of time to set up a much bigger universe.
Whether or not James Gunn decides to go down this route is down to him. I’m hopeful, though.
I’m not throwing any shade on Marvel here either. They’ve had some great projects this year, including Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four. I personally enjoyed Captain America: Brave New World, although I know others were particularly keen on it; I still liked it for what it was.
As already mentioned, they have some interesting projects coming up as well, but will these live up to the hype? I guess that remains to be seen. Thor: Love and Thunder should’ve been a massive success, and financially it was, critically it was one of the worst films I’ve seen in my life. This is what worries me about Marvel and it’s why my attentions are turned to what James Gunn is doing at DC. After all, this was the man who made 3 brilliant films with the Guardians of the Galaxy and has already shown early success at DC.
In an ideal world, Brand New Day, Doomsday, Supergirl, and other projects both franchises have in the works will be grand successes. I’m a fan of superheroes, so for me, the more quality projects we get, the better it’ll be.
