"The DCAU SHOULD Have Been The Blueprint For The DCEU"

[Greta]

DCAU (the new 52 based ones) are some of the best comic book animated movies to have ever been produced. The comics are a better blueprint but the DCAU movies are really quite a treasure. Everything I have seen after JLD Apokalypse War has been bad though.... really bad.

[Holt]

And yes, if there’s any one single lesson that I think should have been applied, it’s probably that a Jon Stewart Green Lantern is a better idea for diversity than Cyborg.

Indeed. I get why Cyborg made sense on paper but he was never a good fit for the role they were trying to force him into. And all it accomplished was nixing nearly all of his interesting character connections by removing the Teen Titans from his backstory.

[Lightning Rider]

I agree that the storytelling strategies can be adapted while leaving a lot of questionable character choices behind. The stories worked so well because each character had a distinctive voice, the interactions felt genuine, and there was usually a personal lesson to learn through the course of the adventure. An ensemble cast needs certain group dynamics to succeed, which the MCU team movies balanced very well. The DCEU could have achieved this with better planning; it seems like the shared universe is coming to an end just when the table was set for it to truly begin.

[hairys]

The DCAU was awesome, and Justice League / Justice League Unlimited was a beloved animated show. Should the DCEU have done a shot-for-shot live-action remake? Of course not, but the show should've served as a model for what stories to tell, team dynamics (with some tweaks), characterizations (with some tweaks), and roster (with maybe a tweak to replace MM with Cyborg).

The first DCEU movie should've been the Justice League because the world is pretty familiar with these iconic characters already. It's the Avengers that needed to be introduced and slowly built up.

[Buried Alien]

I've never seen this take before. How did it do the Silver Age dirty when it wasn't really adapting any silver age stuff?

The silver age adaptation was Superfriends.

Barry Allen and Hal Jordan didn't exist...not even in the past.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Frontier]

Barry Allen and Hal Jordan didn't exist...not even in the past.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Well, Hal showed up because of time travel shenanigans.

And if you take JLvsFF as canon, he actually exists along with Guy in the DCAU.

[SecretWarrior]

They didn't want to needlessly confuse viewers.

[Buried Alien]

They didn't want to needlessly confuse viewers.

That was pretty much the pretext DC used throughout the late 80s, the 90s, and the first few years of the 2000s to bury the Silver Age. I do know that from the middle of the 2000s on, the pendulum swung hard in the other direction.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[John Venus]

I like the DCAU, but like many things from the 90s associated with DC, it did the Silver Age dirty.

Shayera, Mxyzpltk, Supergirl, Legion of Superheroes, the Condiment King would all like to have a word with you.

Even though the DCAU drew from the Post Crisis universe they showed that stories where Superman dresses up as Batman and Superman races the Flash are still viable and can work even in more 'serious' universes. They also showed there was still a place for sillier characters like Mxyzpltk alongside the more serious ones. The comic books solution to Superman being the 'last son of krypton' was to turn Supergirl into an shape shifting blob and we are still reeling from their attempts to fix the Legion. The DCAU offered more viable solutions to those problems. Supergirl was from Krypton's 'sister planet' and the LoSH visited a teen Clark who was never Superboy but you still had that connection.

Barry Allen and Hal Jordan didn't exist...not even in the past.

We don't know enough about this universe's Flash to say Barry never existed. By the time the JL was formed, this universe's Dick Grayson had been Nightwing for years, John Stewart had been a Green Lantern for 15 years and Batman was edging towards his 40's. Given how 'open' the narrative of the DCAU is, there is always room to include characters we haven't seen before to show up.

Well, Hal showed up because of time travel shenanigans.

And if you take JLvsFF as canon, he actually exists along with Guy in the DCAU.

Timm said that JLvsFF was canon 'if [the viewers] want it to be' especially since the movie contradicts a lot of DCAU continuity. Its meant to be something that the audience can 'disregard' is they want to. I think Hal's hologram in the LoSH museum is meant to imply that GL: TAS but I don't know how to feel about Hal being the lead of a GL show set in the DCAU when it's primary Lantern had been John.

Also, Dwayne McDuffie wrote that time travel episode. He was a Hal fan and wanted to include him somehow in the show.

[Stanlos]

DCAU (the new 52 based ones) are some of the best comic book animated movies to have ever been produced. The comics are a better blueprint but the DCAU movies are really quite a treasure. Everything I have seen after JLD Apokalypse War has been bad though.... really bad.

I will have to respectfully disagree and marvel at the wonderful example of tastes varying

[Amadeus Arkham]

With the constant comparisons between the MCU and DCAU, I do wonder if Feige took a little inspiration for how he approached the MCU from the DCAU. Kevin Feige is a BTAS fan after all, and likely is familiar with other animated DC projects as well such as Justice League and STAS. I wish someone would ask him.

[Alpha]

DCAU (the new 52 based ones) are some of the best comic book animated movies to have ever been produced. The comics are a better blueprint but the DCAU movies are really quite a treasure. Everything I have seen after JLD Apokalypse War has been bad though.... really bad.

Lol what? There are good stories in there, but all of the dialogue is cringy, which was something the pre Flashpoint movies actually handled really well.

[godisawesome]

That was pretty much the pretext DC used throughout the late 80s, the 90s, and the first few years of the 2000s to bury the Silver Age. I do know that from the middle of the 2000s on, the pendulum swung hard in the other direction.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I myself remember being vaguely disappointed that Wally didn’t get to contrast with a more stolid Barry in some flashback episodes. Don’t get me wrong; I *am* one of those readers who thinks Wally is an intrinsically superior character concept and personality to Barry … but the real secret ingredient to me is the legacy hero element.

If I got put in charge of the DCEU, I likely would have gone with Wally as the Flash, but tried to either “scoop” the MCU by getting a legacy character out before Ant-Man, or do a legacy character differently than them.

…I’ll confess with Hal, I’m much more “meh.” Not because I think Kyle’s more interesting, but because I think John and Guy are more interesting.

[superduperman]

Barry Allen and Hal Jordan didn't exist...not even in the past.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

IDK that we ever got confirmation on Barry one way or the other. Hal clearly didn't exist here as when he showed up the one time no one knew who he was. This was back when DC still had a pretty tight leash on other media and made them follow the post-Crisis model.

[The Darknight Detective]

I definitely think the DCAU creators approached the material a lot like the MCU creators do.

They did it before the MCU did it, too.