The Avengers was really the Revenge of the Nerds, avenging comic book fans on a world which spent two decades saying superhero movies were stupid. Now Marvel movies make more money than several countries. And employ more people. And could probably assemble a larger army of screamingly loyal supporters. We’re about a decade away from Marvel entering a team in the World Cup.
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We think this is offside?
(Source: Marvel)
A more immediate effect is increased interest in ensemble movies. The special effects team for Age of Ultron are currently trying to design a vault big enough to hold all the money they’ll make, while Guardians of the Galaxy proved that previously unknown heroes can also earn few Fort Knoxes in ticket sales.
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This time last year describing these guys sounded like someone having a stroke. Now it sounds like a cash register mating with a fruit machine.
(Source: Marvel)
Superteam movies allow companies to cash-in with five times as many toys, and the interaction between team-members saves them from repeating the same “everything’s fine, no wait there’s a problem, now everything’s fine again” story arc over and over again. DC are gearing up to bring us the Justice League, and Marvel have announced their plans to “film every goddamn thing we’ve ever made (slight paraphrasing).” But it’s not just the big names we want to see. Here are five more Guardian-grade superteams who could provide some vital variety.
Teen Titans
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Robin finally finds somewhere his costume blends in.
(Source: DC Comics)
The Teen Titans are perfect conversion fodder: a cast of exciting characters, piles of pre-existing stories, and a massively successful cartoon which ran just long enough ago to guarantee parents bringing their kids to the cinema. Or even better, people who don’t have kids and therefore have even more money to spend. Either way you’re making twice as much money. Robin’s membership even means it ticks the “Something to do with Batman” box, which seems to have been the only box on DC’s “should we make a movie” checklist for the last few decades.
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Ironically, doing cool things to earn lots of money is the economic opposite of Batmanning.
(Source: DC Comics)
An animated Teen Titans movie would be a bright and shiny teenventure. It’s such a surefire hit you’d need to build an entire universe dedicated only to grittiness and pain to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately that’s exactly what DC have done. Their commitment to a single shared universe means heroes aren’t allowed onscreen unless you look like you’ve been sand-blasted and crying about it. And that huge pile of money on the table will just have to wait until all those kids grow up, have three divorces, and discover an interest in skin-tight plastics. All this despite the current Teen Titans GO series being the animated equivalent of adrenaline.
Suicide Squad
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Bane just wants to give you a hug. DO NOT LET BANE GIVE YOU A HUG.
(Source: DC Comics)
DC have already announced Suicide Squad, so we’re already excited, and we want to talk about the brilliant movie it could be. The Suicide Squad was superpowered recycling, sweeping up selections of D-list villains and putting them to work as expendable assassins. They were canaries which could kick ass before dying. For comics fans the appeal was giving one-shot characters a second chance at glory before being written out for good. But in the modern movie world of endless sequels we can make it much more exciting. Imagine: Fast & Furious with superpowers instead of supercars. An endless series of movies introducing and dumping new characters with each sequel.
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And the world has need of Deadshot.
(Source: DC Comics)
The series’ most obvious draw was that characters actually died. And if Game of Thrones has taught us anything, it’s that pop culture loves killing people. The pace of movie production might mean leaks would spoil a lot of the surprises, but people are apparently still surprised by Game of Thrones even though all the deaths were printed several hundred million times and distributed worldwide. The movies could film a few death scenes and choose what happens in editing. Every leak would be automatic viral advertising. Even better, make it clear that public campaigns will actually affect the plot of the next movie. Social media would build all your buzz. Actors could contribute to their own survivability. And with enough publicity, you could make it the first time in superhero history that someone coming back from the dead was a genuine surprise.
Planetary
Was there ever a super-series so tailored to network TV as this one? It’s X-Files for the pop culture generation. Icy amnesiac Elijah Snow gets recruited into a mysteriously powerful society of super-powered archeologists. Helmed by a “Fourth Man” that no one ever sees, Planetary quickly proved itself to be one of the best superhero books ever written.
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If you’re not already reading it, you’re in the wrong.
Snow, along with the nutty Drummer and the ineffably capable Jakita Wagner, uncover comics’ pulp origins and the outside influences that furthered them, such as when Japanese giant monster films kicked off a solid run of Timely Comics’ creature comics.
Unfortunately, they have competition: a group of adventurer scientists eerily similar to a current fantastical foursome stinking up movie theaters. The Four want to keep this universe of comics all for themselves, and Snow will have to learn the game very fast if he wants to stay alive…and keep this strange world worth saving.
So to recap: three strong character leads exploring a different setting every week, with one huge spectacle payoff, that sound enough like X-Files or Fringe to hit the screen yet? Somebody put them on TV so we don’t feel bad asking DC where they fit in the New 52.
Gen 13
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(Source: WildStorm, now DC)
Gen 13 was a serious comic about genetically ultra-hot teenagers fighting an evil government. Seriously, becoming super-attractive was part of the powerset. It’s what we do when casting movies anyway, so why not officially admit it as part of the story, just once? Besides, teenagers fighting shadowy organizations is half of all action movie plots already.
If Teen Titans is the kid-friendly supergroup, let Gen 13 take over the self-aware eyecandy. Especially as Gen 13 was as close to 50/50 in male-female as a five member team could be, and the guys spent just as much time with their kit off. Surfer-build Burnout’s power set removed his clothes by literally being too hot, while musclebound Grunge could literally rock toplessness with his ability to absorb the properties of any material he touched. Properly played this could be screen-sugar for everyone. And while it did spend a lot of time as sort-of-softcore, some brilliant writers elevated the series to considered character comedy, touching teen drama, and tech-joy ultrapowered alternate-imagination awesomeness.
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Yeah, this is pretty much every movie advertising urge simultaneously. (Source: Wildstorm, now DC)
The only possible complaint is that Sarah Rainmaker’s ability to control the weather makes her too similar to Storm, but that’s nonsense. At the last count we had four thousand bulletproof white guys. Two weather-controlling women isn’t repetitive.
The Movement
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Occupy continuity.
(Source: DC Comics)
The Movement was Occupy Superpowers, and it was awesome. A group of dysfunctional heroes doing their best in a region so urban decayed that even Batman checks his pockets after swinging across a dark alley. A no-name nowhere fallen so far under the cracks that the big name heroes only drop in to tell them that they’re helping people wrong. Instead of, you know, helping.
The Movement let superheroes do more than punch each other. I mean, they absolutely did that, but they were troubled teens using every tool at their disposal to fight corrupt cops, amoral businessmen, religious intolerance, and other problems from their everyday lives. And not just in origin stories, where they use their new Neutrino Nunchucks or whatever to beat up a bully before Captain America swoops in to tell them they’re meant for finer things. No, this was using a bit of strength to make bent police officers face trial, and then finding out real problems are too complicated to punch into shape.
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You’d think comic police would know that “Tank vs lone person” doesn’t work by now.
(Source: DC Comics)
Gail Simone is the queen of characterization, and she had carte blanche to assemble her own squad of unique superheroes. In fact, every comic writer has white card-stock to create whatever they want. Which is why it’s such a shame so many super-squads are “slightly-differently painted mannequins with a few different colors of energy blast.” Of all the characters who could truly do anything, superheroes should be the very definition of doing what other characters can’t. Besides, DC has to try something to catch up with Marvel.
Which is why we want to see movies like this.
Image may be NSFW.
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Luke McKinney writes about games, drink, science, and everything else that makes life amazing. He’s a columnist on Cracked and writes for several beer magazines. He’s also available for hire. Follow him on Tumblr and Twitter @lukemckinney.
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