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  1. #16
    Incredible Member basbash99's Avatar
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    I can agree with the idea that the mcu had an advantage in that, Hulk aside, the marvel heroes from the first few mcu phases were more or less blank slates... that is, moviegoers didn't already have a lot of preconceived notions of what the characters should be like. Batman, Superman, and WW are all well-known enough characters that moviegoers have their own ideas about them which makes any cinematic depiction of them more prone to controversy. But tbh this mainly comes into play with Superman, as Zack's take on the character is much different than how a lot of people view him, both comic fans and folks more casually acquainted with him.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by basbash99 View Post
    I can agree with the idea that the mcu had an advantage in that, Hulk aside, the marvel heroes from the first few mcu phases were more or less blank slates... that is, moviegoers didn't already have a lot of preconceived notions of what the characters should be like. Batman, Superman, and WW are all well-known enough characters that moviegoers have their own ideas about them which makes any cinematic depiction of them more prone to controversy. But tbh this mainly comes into play with Superman, as Zack's take on the character is much different than how a lot of people view him, both comic fans and folks more casually acquainted with him.
    I believe Hulk is one of the few characters that have been criticized in the MCU and it has nothing to do with the actor but more about the way he's been utilized and written. I don't know a single person who was okay with how they handled his transformation into Professor Hulk offscreen and how we never got our Hulk vs Thanos rematch. If most people didn't have a preconceived notion of how Hulk is and should be, then I wonder if the same criticism would have still happened.

  3. #18
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    I kinda agree with him.

    Actually, its always made more sense for DC to embrace a multiverse than Marvel. Unlike Marvel, which was largely built as a cohesive shared universe since Day 1, DC has always been more of an umbrella of multiple disparate universes coming together. I mean, DC as a brand as we know it today was a merger of two different companies (Detective Comics and All-American Comics), so that's literally part of their DNA.

    Also, in the case of Marvel, most of their A-listers became big names throught the MCU. Most of the big-name Avengers had never had a major TV or film adaptation that captured the popular consciousness (with the possible exception of the Hulk due to the 70's show). So you could build a cohesive universe from the ground-up with the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man etc. without having to worry about stepping on the toes of some competing version/adaptation that's a major part of pop culture.

    Spider-Man is the exception that proves the rule for the MCU. The MCU Spider-Man, while well-received, also has a fair number of detractors who compare him unfavorably to previous incarnations, most notably Tobey Maguire's version of the character. Because Spider-Man is one of the few Marvel characters who was a pop-culture juggernaut before the MCU. The X-men are the other great example, and when the MCU X-men reboot happens, I'm sure we'll see a lot more friction from sections of the fanbase than we did with most other MCU characters. (You already have a lot of people hoping that Hugh Jackman remains Wolverine - that's how ingrained his take on the character is).

    Tonally too, DC characters are much more disparate than Marvel - often in ways that are difficult to explain. But its somehow easier to believe that Spider-Man lives in the same world as Thor, than it is to believe that Aquaman lives in the same world as Batman. Maybe because, back in the 60's, Stan Lee always imagined Spider-Man and Thor as being part of the same universe even before they actually met on page - while Kane/Finger and Mort Weisinger probably never imagined their respective character's paths would ever cross when they created them.

  4. #19
    BANNED Killerbee911's Avatar
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    DC shouldn't have a one set tone, Marvel shouldn't have one set tone. Batman, Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, Joker, I get having a darker feel but Superman. Nope. Aquaman.Nope. Shazam. Nope. The tone should fit the character and the story. DC is wasting the advantage it has over marvel by everything being gloomy and dark not showing off the full range of tones that they can do and Marvel can't do. Thankful with a couple of movies they broke that cycle, I like Zach Synder but he was the wrong dude to shepherd the mainline of DC movies BUT I would love a world where he directed a live-action Red Son, Kingdom Come, etc

  5. #20
    Anyone. Anywhere.Anytime. Arsenal's Avatar
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    Outside of Nolan & Arkham's Batman, I'm not sure if the general audience has any real attachment to a specific interpretation of their characters (pre 2013).

    All of the really big DC stuff is decades old at this point and I'm not sure if the general audience is even aware most of it exists, let alone actually seen any of it. Obviously people know of the characters but I really doubt most of them have these strong attachments to previous iterations that some seem to think they do.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Killerbee911 View Post
    DC shouldn't have a one set tone, Marvel shouldn't have one set tone. Batman, Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, Joker, I get having a darker feel but Superman. Nope. Aquaman.Nope. Shazam. Nope. The tone should fit the character and the story. DC is wasting the advantage it has over marvel by everything being gloomy and dark not showing off the full range of tones that they can do and Marvel can't do. Thankful with a couple of movies they broke that cycle, I like Zach Synder but he was the wrong dude to shepherd the mainline of DC movies BUT I would love a world where he directed a live-action Red Son, Kingdom Come, etc
    Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam! prove you wrong there.

    The one character who's conventionally 'light-hearted' that Snyder arguably put a darker spin on was Superman, and I'd argue that it was a necessary reinvention of the character to break away from the Donner/Reeve mold. Also, Superman himself was a fairly hopeful and optimistic character in his movies (albeit a bit more 'realistically' so). It was the world around him that was dark.

    Quote Originally Posted by Arsenal View Post
    Outside of Nolan & Arkham's Batman, I'm not sure if the general audience has any real attachment to a specific interpretation of their characters (pre 2013).

    All of the really big DC stuff is decades old at this point and I'm not sure if the general audience is even aware most of it exists, let alone actually seen any of it. Obviously people know of the characters but I really doubt most of them have these strong attachments to previous iterations that some seem to think they do.
    I dunno...I'd say the Christopher Reeve Superman movies still shape the popular perception of Superman to a large extent. Hell, even MOS in many ways played out like a grittier 'remake' of the first two movies.

    A LOT of people (me included!) consider John Stewart to be THE Green Lantern based on nostalgia for the JLU cartoon.

    Batman's an interesting case. I'd argue that BTAS, the Burton movies, the Nolanverse, the Arkham games etc. all present a vision of the character that is broadly in the same mould, with some variations. So even if casual audiences today aren't fully aware of any one specific iteration (well, in the case of the Nolanverse, it's hard to imagine anyone with a passing interest in movies not being aware...), there's this broad notion of what Batman is supposed to be like that has permeated the popular consciousness and which will continue to shape any major future adaptation.

  7. #22
    My Face Is Up Here Powerboy's Avatar
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    I agree with everything he said in the article.

    Marvel movies had a huge advantage in terms of leeway because most people were not that familiar with these characters. Sure, they may have heard the names but they didn't know much about them. Captain America was just a famous name they knew little about.

    DC had some characters that were very different from each other and that it's harder to meld them into a unified whole as in a shared universe because people already have expectations of who these characters are.

    The problem, rather obviously, is that we start with Man of Steel which puts Superman into a context that does not go with people's expectations and then vary slightly from those expectations. It goes far distant of those expectations.

    Then we have Batman versus Superman, which inherently has a clash of atmospheres and style for the two characters and goes entirely with the Batman atmosphere and style and even to the more extreme levels of Batman portrayals and maybe beyond. Even Miller's DKR had Batman sticking to his no killing rule.

    So Snyder says things that really explain why his own movies had problems.

    Ongoing, I definitely want to see individual movies where the tone fits the character. Team-up movies are certainly still possible but they need to bend towards the middle in terms of the styles and tone of the various characters.
    Power with Girl is better.

  8. #23
    My Face Is Up Here Powerboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malvolio View Post
    The only truly successful live-action Marvel franchise in the 20th century was the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferigno Incredible Hulk series. And the Hulk movies were not as successful as the other MCU films, to the point where they pretty much said that those movies are not in the same continuity as the other films, even with the Tony Stark post-credits scenes. So maybe the Snyder argument has some merit.
    Just for nostalgia, I'll add that the Hulk television show was the first attempt to do a live action superhero story at an adult level. This was about a year before the first Chris Reeve Superman movie.

    Regardless of how it seems now, that first made for television movie was a shocking difference from what people expected at the time.
    Power with Girl is better.

  9. #24
    My Face Is Up Here Powerboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ComicJunkie21 View Post
    I believe Hulk is one of the few characters that have been criticized in the MCU and it has nothing to do with the actor but more about the way he's been utilized and written. I don't know a single person who was okay with how they handled his transformation into Professor Hulk offscreen and how we never got our Hulk vs Thanos rematch. If most people didn't have a preconceived notion of how Hulk is and should be, then I wonder if the same criticism would have still happened.
    I'm with you. I totally expected a Hulk vs. Thanos rematch. Why was the Hulk refusing to come out? What are the details of him becoming Professor Hulk? Why is Betty Ross being ignored? Um, regarding this Natasha thing, doesn't he still have a problem with getting "worked up"? There are just so many dropped plot threads.

    Plus, the television Hulk is so well known that they felt they had to sort of recreate that origin. But they did it so poorly. The television Hulk of Bixby and Ferrigno was driven by the death of his wife and never intended to become anything like the Hulk. In the movie, they sort of sneak in the Ultimate Universe and imply he kind of knew what the experiment would do to him and what the military applications would be. Plus the Bixby version could slow down and explore the implications in a story. The movie seemed to feel it needed to have action or the possibility of action in every scene, which is not conductive to bothering with a thoughtful origin.
    Power with Girl is better.

  10. #25
    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    Does it have to be one-to-one comparison? Can't individual properties/takes be looked at in isolation? I know the Marvel movies having a kind of house style or tone because of their shared universe and frequency kind of beg the comparison but I don't think there should be an absolute way of adapting something.

    The DCAU was a very MCU approach to adapting DC properties before the MCU was even a thing but I feel like even the DCAU doesn't need to be held up as the be all, end all, of adaptions.

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Powerboy View Post
    I agree with everything he said in the article.

    Marvel movies had a huge advantage in terms of leeway because most people were not that familiar with these characters. Sure, they may have heard the names but they didn't know much about them. Captain America was just a famous name they knew little about.

    DC had some characters that were very different from each other and that it's harder to meld them into a unified whole as in a shared universe because people already have expectations of who these characters are.

    The problem, rather obviously, is that we start with Man of Steel which puts Superman into a context that does not go with people's expectations and then vary slightly from those expectations. It goes far distant of those expectations.

    Then we have Batman versus Superman, which inherently has a clash of atmospheres and style for the two characters and goes entirely with the Batman atmosphere and style and even to the more extreme levels of Batman portrayals and maybe beyond. Even Miller's DKR had Batman sticking to his no killing rule.

    So Snyder says things that really explain why his own movies had problems.

    Ongoing, I definitely want to see individual movies where the tone fits the character. Team-up movies are certainly still possible but they need to bend towards the middle in terms of the styles and tone of the various characters.
    I agree that BvS in many ways fit the atmosphere and tone of a 'Batman' story more than what we would expect from a Superman story. A 'middle ground', tonally, might be the World's Finest animated team-up from the 90's which IMO is the gold standard of Superman/Batman team-up stories.

    But...Snyder was trying to do something different with Superman in BvS. He was trying to look at Superman from Batman's perspective and the perspective of Batman's world. Or, at any rate, a darker, more violent and more cynical world. And such a world would view Superman as a force of destruction and as a potential (if not actual) threat. The whole movie is about getting Batman (and the world) to buy in to the idea that Superman truly is a beacon of hope, and a genuienly good guy fighting the good fight. Which of course inspires the creation of the Justice League. The culmination of that story (and we'll see Snyder's take on it soon) is Superman returning from the grave as a great hero and in a moment of ultimate triumph saving the world from its greatest threat and being hailed as an undisputed hero.

    It is a very different take on Superman from what we're used to - not necessarily because Superman himself is different, but because the world is different. Most Superman adaptations, particularly in other media, have the world accept him as a savior, hero and all-round good guy pretty rapidly. Snyder's films present a more 'realistic' take and ask - what if that wasn't the case? A guy who dresses up like a bat to violently beat up criminals wouldn't immediately be hailed as a hero by the public...why would an alien with God-like powers who leaves destruction in his wake be viewed any more benignly?

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by bat39 View Post
    I kinda agree with him.

    Also, in the case of Marvel, most of their A-listers became big names throught the MCU. Most of the big-name Avengers had never had a major TV or film adaptation that captured the popular consciousness (with the possible exception of the Hulk due to the 70's show). So you could build a cohesive universe from the ground-up with the likes of Iron Man, Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man etc. without having to worry about stepping on the toes of some competing version/adaptation that's a major part of pop culture.

    Spider-Man is the exception that proves the rule for the MCU. The MCU Spider-Man, while well-received, also has a fair number of detractors who compare him unfavorably to previous incarnations, most notably Tobey Maguire's version of the character. Because Spider-Man is one of the few Marvel characters who was a pop-culture juggernaut before the MCU. The X-men are the other great example, and when the MCU X-men reboot happens, I'm sure we'll see a lot more friction from sections of the fanbase than we did with most other MCU characters. (You already have a lot of people hoping that Hugh Jackman remains Wolverine - that's how ingrained his take on the character is).
    .

    The other pop culture juggernaut A-Listers from marvel after Spiderman and X-men were the Fantastic 4. There were 2 fox movies that was fairly successful though I never got the critical hate for those films, when I think they are somewhat like Antman, Avengers and Spiderman homecoming level type of comic films. fun, colourful, silly, cgi, comic bookie generic plot and all that jazz.

    Snyder is right but what I wish he should have added was that DCU never needed to compete so quickly with marvel with the DCU. DCU does not need to be a thing.

    When I saw this scene from BvS. I was unhappy.



    It took MCU years and almost 15 hours of films to build to the Avengers crossover movie. Snyder tried to do that in 5 minutes and that was wrong.

    the MCU characters that got to be in the MCU was a perfect setting since no one knew most of them. Additionally this is why you are right that spiderman in the MCU is so wishy washy and so will X-Men. I think with xmen it will be worse with the friction between MCU and fans. I means what can you truly expect from ''Disney x-men''. I will take a Snyder's wolverine film over that. I say this because I know Snyder wanted to make a wolverine film in the 90s.

    https://screenrant.com/wolverine-log...nyder-r-rated/


    Tonally too, DC characters are much more disparate than Marvel - often in ways that are difficult to explain. But its somehow easier to believe that Spider-Man lives in the same world as Thor, than it is to believe that Aquaman lives in the same world as Batman. Maybe because, back in the 60's,
    DCU is gone tonally. Every DCU movie now is like a copy of MCU. Grace Randolph in her wonder woman 84 review said the movie was very cartoony. the only tone that will be different in a DC film are DC films not part of the DCU. The Batman, Joker.

    Stan Lee always imagined Spider-Man and Thor as being part of the same universe even before they actually met on page - while Kane/Finger and Mort Weisinger probably never imagined their respective character's paths would ever cross when they created them.
    Except Marvel comics are not all in likeness like their movies.

  13. #28
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    This is very true for some characters. Superman has been in the shadow of Reeve forever and despite people pracically begging for a tougher Superman when MoS came out (especially after Returns) they really weren't prepared for that.

    Anyways the biggest issue is that Marvel characters were

    1. Written to coexist with each other from the get go. DC characters more have their own silos and then DC did crossovers to cash in on popularity. But it never was like Marvel where a Spider-Man villain might show up in FF or an X-Men villain might pop up in Spider-Man and characters have established friendships (Spider-Man and Human Torch). And that was from the early days of Marvel's silver age.

    2. Marvel characters started out written more like soap operas while DC characters had a bit more pulp comic origins.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by basbash99 View Post
    I can agree with the idea that the mcu had an advantage in that, Hulk aside, the marvel heroes from the first few mcu phases were more or less blank slates... that is, moviegoers didn't already have a lot of preconceived notions of what the characters should be like. Batman, Superman, and WW are all well-known enough characters that moviegoers have their own ideas about them which makes any cinematic depiction of them more prone to controversy. But tbh this mainly comes into play with Superman, as Zack's take on the character is much different than how a lot of people view him, both comic fans and folks more casually acquainted with him.
    Yeah. Put it this way, Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man is nothing like the Iron Man of the comics. If Iron Man were as well known as Batman and Superman, there would have been a bit of a backlash to making him such a comedy character. You see that with Spider-Man and people who don't like the Iron Man Jr angle

  15. #30
    Extraordinary Member Jokerz79's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arsenal View Post
    Outside of Nolan & Arkham's Batman, I'm not sure if the general audience has any real attachment to a specific interpretation of their characters (pre 2013).

    All of the really big DC stuff is decades old at this point and I'm not sure if the general audience is even aware most of it exists, let alone actually seen any of it. Obviously people know of the characters but I really doubt most of them have these strong attachments to previous iterations that some seem to think they do.
    Batman from West to Burton and Nolan had vastly different interpretation but I will say from Kirk Alyn and George Reeves to Christopher Reeve on film to Dean Cain and Tom Welling on tv along with the Superboy tv show Supes has always been shown as pretty much the same to going against that grain would and did IMO cause issues for him.

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