But will the meting out of said ”JUSTICE” truly be up to par?  Both in real life as on various mediums, most notably digital and cinematic…! Can the justice be up to snuff when all parties involved appear to have emerged like… bats… straight out of hell?

It is interesting to see that so much restructuring has taken place already within the burgeoning ”DCEU” – the only cinematic universe to rival Disney’s Marvel-ous product at this point. With four ”official” entries thus far (Man of Steel, Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad – because all that came before does not count, somehow: Green Lantern, the Dark Knight trilogy, that awful Catwoman, Steel, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Losers, Road To Perdition, V For Vendetta, Watchmen and, if we go back far enough, Swamp Thing, the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve that spawned the genre and all the other Batty stuff rehashed over the years…! But… let’s not go there!) DC hopes to firmly establish the rest of their universe with the fifth one: JUSTICE LEAGUE! And I, for one, hope that they do just that!

In its infinite (crisis?) wisdom rather difficult to decipher, DC has decided to separate TV fare from that ”DCEU” that they speak of – the DC Extended Universe, an extension itself of the vastness of their Multiverse that they brought back, after years of denial following their classic use of the key word ”CRISIS” way back in 1985: ”Crisis On Infinite Earths”. That worlds-shattering event was meant to do away completely with any notion of a ”multiverse” and shore in all the various sources into one cohesive universe.  Gone were the various versions of Earth: S, X and many oddball ones. There could be only ONE planet Earth – for a while. That, quite obviously, wasn’t meant to last as they attempted, time and again, to offset this via various Deus Ex Machina bits, one being called ”hypertime” which was basically an excuse to explore all sorts of alternate realities. Now, with the lid blown completely off this creative hampering (thanks to bubbly creative wiz Geoff Johns) anything and everything is possible – in the source material (DC stands for, more and more over time, almost strictly ”digital comics” but, to be honest, they still do waste paper by printing them also) as well as the representations (exploitations) on the small and big screens. So we have two Supermen, one for each screen or medium, if you prefer. Ditto, and far more interestingly, for The Flash. Eventually, it will be true for all of their characters – absolutely all of them. And that is a good thing: because, perhaps then, we can get the classic, true blue Aquaman on TV at least, for example – while the barbarian Atlantean of the seas wreaks havoc on the big DCEU screen…

Alongside his Mera – and the “warrior mermaid” queen mother portrayed by Nicole Kidman herself! (What a casting coup – but that is another story… for later, in 2018!)

The results get to be, therefore… diversified, to say the least! On television (read: on the CW network) we have a Supergirl finally flanked by a mellower version of her Superman-of-a-cousin… We have The (better) Flash… We have an exclusivity, so far: Arrow…  And Gotham – with lesbians! We have DC’s ”Legends of Tomorrow” – that, so far, do not represent a threat to the Justice League’s status of ”number one DC team” – somehow. They are, in truth, viewed as the B-team of said group, with the likes of Firestorm, Atom and Vixen in their ranks. Plus a very sapphic White Canary (one wonders why the whiteness, then…? And why, also, is this LC -lesbian chic- such a recurring trend at DC all of a sudden; they are also present on Supergirl’s show) along with execrable team members such as Captain Cold and Heatwave – members that simply do not belong there at all!  Poor Rip Hunter – he had it even worse than Rick Flag had it with his rag-tag Suicide Squad! Killer Croc… Boomerang… Diablo? Granted he did have Harley Quinn, embodied by Margot Robbie; a guaranteed crowd-pleaser that reeks of LC too… But let’s not go THERE…!

Big name thespians get to play these fan favorite characters, invariably. But this is strictly reserved for theaters, where it is scheduled to be all the ”top names” character-wise as well – but all in due time! Will Smith was recruited to flesh out Deadshot on the ebony side; however, Dwayne Johnson’s turn to appear in the DCEU is still years away…

It makes one wonder who else could be recruited NEXT…? Let us try to imagine, only for a second here… Britney Spears as Black Canary for the DCEU? Leonardo DiCaprio as classic Firestorm? Or The Joker in his early years, as it has been rumored…? Sheldon from Big Bang Theory as the Riddler? The blondie from that show – Kaley – as the DCEU Supergirl, too?  Olivia Wilde as Batgirl? Matt Damon as… a pedestrian casual-ty! Dr. Phil as Krona? Charlize Theron as Harbinger! What a damaging blow it would do to Marvel and their Brie broad as their Captain! LOL Will Ferrell as the Monitor? Or is he better suited to be the Pariah… hmm? Yes – I think so too! But let’s not go there either just now…

2017 will rather be the year of Wonder Woman and the Justice League; Gal Gadot will feature in both and it is clear they count on her to reel in the fanboys. (There was, also, that oddly-erotic foray into the genesis of the Amazon’s character with “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” biopic – but let’s not go there!) 2018 will see Aquaman and Batman – they’ll have Amber Heard (as Mera – seen above, second pic from the top!) and surely a bevy of other beauteous ladies for support, in both cases. Somewhere in-between, there should be Gotham City Sirens, just to try and cash in on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn obsession and appeal, both… But that is another story, again!

Of all of these, JUSTICE LEAGUE has got to be the one to turn the tide, critically-speaking. Wonder Woman started the turning; she’s in this one, as a team leader-figure no less, hence, logically, the turning resumes! So far, all the DCEU films have been bashed for various reasons, ranging from disappointing handling of the characters to outright bad storytelling, pinned primarily on director Zach Snyder’s head. And yet, and yet – Zach Snyder did a bang up job with all that he has ever done in this sub-genre (including his WATCHMEN of course but also his 300 and dare I throw in his Dawn of the Dead?)  and the fans truly have NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT – AT ALL! Still, DC has listened and he will be out of the picture after this JL film; alas. He has only this one shot to redeem himself, therefore: a film packing it all, featuring Momoa’s kickass Aquaman, Gal Gadot’s Amazon, Ben Affleck’s Batman but also a weaker Flash and a non-factor such as Cyborg (sorry, Cy!)  On the villainy’s side, the demonized Steppenwolf reeks of a lot of things – and it may be overkill. He threatens to overshadow his master, Darkseid – seriously! Darky poorly embodies evil, if you ask me: of course he is times better than a Joker, but, quite frankly, one has to hope we have not seen the last of Doomsday! One thing has not changed in DC films, since the Reeve & John Williams days: they lack serious threats to fight! Must be the real Superman Curse; an extended DC Curse now? Maybe the CCO has a solution for this, too…? Not holding my breath though!

(Alas, it does not seem that it will ever include crossovers between the TV fare and the movies: and so somewhat interesting adversaries, rife with potential, such as Killer Frost and Deathstorm, below, will never square off against the ”real Superman” as portrayed by Henry Cavill or Jason Momoa’s Aquaman or Ben Affleck’s Batman… Nooooo – these are TV bad guys: they have no business being on the big screen – ever! Meanwhile, we’ll recruit the broad from the Walking Dead to play Bruce Wayne’s mother shot full of holes – no problem! We’ll get TV veterans to fill up accessory roles (usually surrounding Bataflac indeed) – again, no problemo! Or friends and pet actors of the director in truly insignificant roles that have the cyber fandom abuzz for months on end; such as Jena Malone did when she could have been a number of characters but turned out to be ”Jenet Klyburn” – a character that is about as important and refreshing in the DCU as Jar Jar Binks is, due to fan reaction mostly, in the Star Wars ”U” – but I digress!!!)

One has got to believe, then, that these guys know what they are doing – after the Malone Affair (when she could have been the DKR Robin, Batgirl, Oracle, whatever… she was just Jenet. An homage to Jenette Kahn, was it? Don’t answer that. At least she wasn’t Killer Frost – on TV! What a waste of a good actress right there; verily, she should have been QUEEN OF THE SEAS! But I’m digressing once more.) so, yes, it may be difficult to trust DC at this point in time… Then again, the CCO does have a proven track record now – does he not? Indeed, pulling all the creative strings is Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns: he who revitalized the fates and reps of so many of these characters (Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern and Arthur Curry’s Aquaman, to name but two) and so he should, logically, be the one to properly translate them *all* onto ”silver screen” success at long last – right? Right…

May the… Justice be served, then?

(Not as catchy as ”may the Force be with them” – but then few things can be!)

Images: trademark & copyright DC Entertainment