EPIC FAIL – DC COMICS(maybe not), By Felix Serrano – Robot Dialog #2
September 21, 2010 Felix Serrano 17 Comments
Always the bride’s maid never a bride, sloppy seconds, the big number two. Whatever you want to call it, DC Comics has been living in Marvel’s shadow ever since Stan and Jack added the new extension to the house back in the 60’s.
I don’t get it. DC has always had the access and resources to do what is right by comics, yet they never did. Instead they were just pimped out by the rabbit. DC’s IP’s were slapped on mugs, pencils, pajamas and turned into crappy action figures by kenner (Secret wars figures beat out Super powers anyday!) Even when given the chance to do something ground breaking like bring a black superhero to the silver screen they fuck it up… I still cringe at the thought of the Steel movie. Heh, fucking Shaquille O’neal.
And let’s not forget the utter destruction of the Batman movie franchise in the 90’s. Really?! Arnold “Conan” Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze? Nipples on the Batsuit? C’mon guys.
Where is this all coming from? November is going to be DC month. Warner Brothers is finally going to give DC the push it needs into Hollywood now that they’ve sucked the Harry Potter franchise dry. The problem with this is DC’s biological clock has been ticking for years and it’s earning potential is dropping. Marvel is big dog now in terms of Superhero live action films and I don’t think there is room for another company to do it. So once again, DC is number two.
But…there is still hope. Even though Ryan Renolds will be playing DC’s Green Lantern (with a large forehead) and Marvel’s Deadpool (can you say conflict of interest?), The Green Lantern animated series is in production, and if that is anything like the Direct to DVD GL animated movie, it’s going to be badass. Warner Animation has consistently put out nothing but quality DC Universe Original Animated Movies direct-to-video since they started. If you haven’t seen any, both Green Lantern: First Flight and Wonder Woman are worth picking up. In November DC in conjunction with Sony online entertainment is launching the very ambitious DC Universe online a mmorpg (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) which, if done properly can generate a huge long term subscription base as shown by Blizzard Entertainments World of Warcraft which currently has roughly twelve million monthly subscribers. If they fuse the storylines in game with those in print the Possibilities are endless. DC has a chance of being #1 in something now. Just incase you haven’t seen the trailer for it, here it is. The single coolest thing released with DC characters since Michael Keaton uttered the phrase “I’m Batman.”
MOTU
September 21, 2010 - 12:09 pm
I don’t care what anybody says, George Clooney is still the best Bruce Wayne ever!
…and who does not like nipples?
Felix Serrano
September 21, 2010 - 12:27 pm
I love nips…just not just not batnips, or that rubber ass shot, or the governator, or batman on ice, or bad dialog, or the destruction of a franchise, blablablablabla. All in all Batman has been resurrected and redeemed. It’s the others I worry about.
McCarthy
September 21, 2010 - 2:21 pm
The Bat-Nipples come in handy when you’re driving the Batmobile and need to make a hands-free Batphone call to Commissioner Gordon. Or Joel Schumacher.
MOTU
September 21, 2010 - 4:52 pm
LOL!
Reg
September 22, 2010 - 7:56 am
Yeah this clip is mad good. I’d gladly pay the inflated ticket price to see this at the cineplex if DC were to drop the coin the make this a real feature length film a’la Final Fantasy.
Felix Serrano
September 22, 2010 - 8:17 am
Agreed Reg. It’s time we see a serious CG film with characters we know. Enough with the talking animals.
Mike Gold
September 22, 2010 - 8:49 am
Bat-nipples are okay. They beat puking lunch into Robin’s mouth.
I liked the GL D2DVD, but it sold for crap. Really, only the Batman D2DVDs actually sell, and that includes the ones that co-star (but prominently feature) Bats. Supes does okay. WW and GL, not so much — although I liked both a lot. An on-going series is another matter, as it’s got several afterlives (Boomerang, DVD, syndication) and it generates lots of licensing. Unless they feature the black guy. Then, not so much. Remember all those Static Shock tie-ins?
Reg
September 22, 2010 - 10:59 am
Mike,
What name would you put to the reason for TPTB to consistently refuse to fully develop the Static Shock model? No toys, no DTVs, no standalone comic even though the show was (and remains) a hit not just stateside but in the LA market?
Things that make you go…..hmmmmm*BS!*mmmm.
Felix, no doubt. And if they were smart, to take advantage of the JLU fanbase, GL would be Stewart.
Yeah, I know. Aviator swine.
Mike Gold
September 22, 2010 - 4:03 pm
Reg, to respond to your question, let me tell you about a totally unrelated incident that happened at DC.
We were publishing a book called El Diablo; not the western but a modern superhero. Modern LATINO superhero. This was at a time when no other Latino headlined his own book. The guy who was marketing director at the time canceled the book. His reason: “We don’t have a lot of those people buying our books.”
I was not the editor of this title, but it was in my editorial group and I was its group editor and therefore its designated defender. I’ll only report the POLITE part of my response at the time of the incident: “And we don’t have a lot of Kryptonians buying Superman. Are you going to cancel THAT, *******?”
The asterisks are in place of the word I used because I said I’d only report the polite part.
My knee-jerk response is to suggest that those same sort of prejudices occurred at every or most steps of the Static Shock backroom — in other words, NOT the people responsible for producing the actual show. Merchandising drives teevee animation more than anything else, and my bet is that Warners’ merchandising people gave it short shrift because they were told Static Shock only appealed to black kids (and to my wife and me, evidently) and black kids are poor and don’t have any money so there wouldn’t be much in the way of action figures or other cool crap like that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were told by “certain” buyers at retail chains that they didn’t want product that would encourage shrinkage. After all, black kids steal, don’t they?
Surprisingly, I’m not suggesting that these non-decisions are the result of wide-spread racism. Not at all. It only takes ONE person in a position of power to kill a project, any project. Then all the underlings keep their mouths shut. “We’ve got to keep our phony-baloney jobs, gentlemen,” Governor William J. Lepetomane told Hedley Lamarr and his other underlings in one of the most sage comments ever uttered in the movies.
McCarthy
September 22, 2010 - 8:21 pm
This blog post got me curious about the Batnipples so I went back to Akiva Goldsman’s original screenplay for BATMAN & ROBIN and learned that they aren’t intended to be nipples at all, but rather two precious pearls preserved from Bruce Wayne’s dear departed mother’s necklace and worn close to his crime-fighting heart so that Batman never forgets why he crusades in a cape.
And now I feel badly about making fun of the Batnipples. Thanks a LOT, Felix.
Felix Serrano
September 22, 2010 - 9:41 pm
Hence, NEVER forget Kevin.
Mike, It seems like there is still one stale element at DC that has not been sniffed out. Perhaps when said element is extracted we will see Black Captain Marvel!
Mike Gold
September 23, 2010 - 9:14 am
I’d prefer to see an original black superhero whose first name is NOT “Black.”
Which, if you think about it, makes John Stewart unique. A black superhero who’s Green!
Vinnie Bartilucci
September 23, 2010 - 9:38 am
“A black superhero who’s Green!”
the punchline is “All you DARK green guys get in the back of the bus…”
Static is not the only minority character to achieve success in other media. The new Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, is a breakout star on the Brave and the Bold show. He’s getting lots of action fogures et al, however.
In all honesty, DC’s lack of capitalization is likely more connected to the fact that they don’t own the character outright (and far as I know, still don’t). Dwayne and Derek likely have a piece of the pie, and DC/WB doesn’t want to share. Static is now in the Teen Titans, and WILL be getting a new book, but it’s too little too late, IMHO.
Mike Gold
September 23, 2010 - 1:10 pm
The new Blue Beetle on the B & the B didn’t save the new Blue Beetle’s comic book. But as far as the toy stores are concerned, the new Blue Beetle is just another white guy in a big uniform.
MOTU is in a better position to say what DC gets and who else gets what, but when it comes to merchandising and licensing, it’s found money for everybody. Actual risk-capital isn’t involved here; the toy companies and toy stores and comics shops take on the risk… which is why you can usually find last year’s movie action figures in the bargain bins after X-Mas.
Bill K.
September 28, 2010 - 8:38 am
Am I writing from another universe? “The Dark Knight Returns” is the second highest grossing film of all time isn’t it? And it’s just a couple of years old. Sure, DC has yet to get anything else meaningful off the ground, but let’s look at Marvel and their “success”. Iron Man is a huge success, but the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises have run their course, Fantastic Four never launched and they’ve flopped with The Hulk TWICE. So how is Marvel doing so much better than DC?
Felix Serrano
September 28, 2010 - 9:33 am
Bill, The Ressurected Batman franchise is all DC has. The Dark Knight Returns is # 7 of the top grossing films of all time (the top 2 slots belong to James Cameron – Avatar and Titanic). Lets not confuse Marvel Entertainment with other companies who have movie rights. Spider-man is stuck with Sony until they ride out their movie deal. X-men and the Fantastic Four are with Fox. The Hulk is back with Marvel. This gives the company an opportunity to mix and match character pair ups without having to go through red tape. Continuity is the key to successful comics(and comic book movies). DC/Warner Brothers has had this opportunity for YEARS and never jumped on it. We could have seen a Justice League movie, a pair up with superman and batman a teen titans movie that would have blown spy kids out of the water, but executives at Warner bros. never acted on it and DC never pushed their earning potential on them…Until Marvel showed them how it could be done. It’s a one shot hype engine at this point. Marvel has established it’s huge event coming in 2012 and they will have enough money (combined with Disney) to do what ever they please without any red tape. DC on the other hand will look as if they were just following the trend…once again. And if you want to look at raw data, lets look at stocks – Time Warner inc, DC’s parent Company NYSE:TWX $30.95 a share, Marvel Entertainment, NYSE:MVL $54.08 a share. HULK SMASH SUPERMAN PANTY STOCK!
Unfortunately, after 2012 I think Super Hero fever is going to subside. There is usually an implosion after an explosion. It happens anytime you flood a market with something. People get sick of it.
Even if Thor and Captain America suck, people are going to see The Avengers. Can the same be said for Green Lantern or a Superman relaunch (again.)? A justice League movie without Batman or Superman? Oh and when does Jonah Hex come out? wait a minute…it did.
mike weber
September 28, 2010 - 9:56 am
I was less than overwhelmed by “Tha Dark Knight”.
In fact, i was less than whelmed.
I guess you could say i was underwhelmed.
I can count on the fingers of one hand what i actually liked – “No, no, no – I kill the bus driver!”, making the pencil disappear, Gary Oldman as Gordon, Aaron Eckharts’ Two-Face and Michael Caine’s Alfred and his summation of what might make the Joker tick.
I was neutral or ambivalent about most of the rest, and actively put off by the reconceptualisation of the Joker, though i must say Heath Ledger made a good career move, dying when he did…