Superman has been confirmed as the centerpiece of James Gunn’s new DCU.
Whatever the full plan for the DC Universe reboot, it looks like Superman will play a big role. It makes sense. Superman has always been DC’s equal and the company’s flag-bearer. DC Studios head and co-leader James Gunn hinted at a lot in a recent statement. However, advancing Superman comes at a certain creative cost. As well as covering characters that have been dramatized many times in the past, Justice limits narrative concepts such as the use of characters like his Society and generational conflicts between older and younger superheroes. There is likely to be.
An easy way to allow the Justice Society to thrive in the new DCU is to go back to the beginning. Rather than trying to formally integrate them into the new narrative, the franchise was simply able to restore the concept of Earth-2. Allows you to provide the setting for a Golden Age-style story set in the Great War. Restoring Earth-2 also avoids diminishing Superman’s ability to serve as the “first” superhero in the new DC Universe that Gunn and Peter Safran are creating.
The Justice Society deserves a seat in the DCU
Besides being an interesting hero in its own right, Justice Society has a huge number of story possibilities. The Golden Age produces fantastic retro-history stories in which Super-His beings in various costumes fought the Nazis both on American strongholds and on the battlefields of occupied Europe. But that era remains largely unexplored in modern adaptations, with notable exceptions. Captain America: The First Avenger And some animation features. Justice Society is perfect for that kind of storytelling, featuring characters from the era that match that sensibility and approach to superhero storytelling. With them, Wonder Woman, DC’s banner carrier of WWII heroes, can join Superman in a modern setting without worrying about her actions during the war.
Justice Society also provides a great fulcrum for a cross-generational story.As they grow older and the world moves on, they can pass that legacy on to new generations of heroes. give predecessors to their heirs star girl The live-action series showed the potential of these figures for such stories, as well as characters like the Seven Soldiers of Victory and All-Star Sentai.
Earth-2 gives DC the best of both worlds
Presenting Superman as the beginning of a superpowered era in the new DC Universe complicates the concept of WWII heroes and generational legacies. To do so would either force the Justice Society to work in an environment of complete secrecy, or simply ignore them completely. black adams The outrageous approach to Justice Society presents the kinds of pitfalls that can arise from either equation. The easiest solution is to simply forget about their existence. This leaves many great characters in the cold and limits franchise options as they expand.
Earth-2 is an easy solution with lots of comic book history to back it up. It gives the Justice Society and its accompanying heroes their own corner of the DC Universe. It promotes movies, new TV series, and whatever the creators want to explore without encountering what Gunn and Saffron have planned for his DC Universe in the “main”. Heroes like Helena Wayne’s Huntress and Power Girl could have their own standalone her TV series, allowing DC to explore them as characters without constantly running into more popular figures. Superman could continue to be a cornerstone of Earth-1, along with Batman, Wonder Woman, and similar figures beyond the Golden Age. Still, the Justice Society’s narrative potential can thrive around Man of Steel without needing to be explained.
The multiverse makes such concepts more practical, and the DC property is no stranger to this concept, as the Arrowverse and similar efforts have shown. Earth-2 gives Justice Society its own continuity to explore without diminishing familiar characters like Kal-El. A parallel universe might seem like more than Gunn and his DC are willing to take on when it comes to reinventing his franchise of vaunted superheroes. However, when it comes to specific figures in the Pantheon, it just might solve a lot of problems.