Modern Pantheon: The Justice League

All of the image credits for this post go to Alex Ross, DC Comics, and Warner Brothers. For me, the above picture represents a standard. I have mentioned in a previous post that I thought that Warner Brothers and DC had made an artistic mistake when designing the costumes of their superheroes for this franchise. I mean, why mess around? The work has already been done, and I regard the work of Alex Ross as the gold standard for the visual appearance of DC characters. It’s okay to update things a little, and I would point to the design work for Wonder Woman as a less controversial example.

I don’t normally review trailers or other promotional materials for movies since I prefer to see the finished product before writing about it, but this was too intriguing. The poster below is a step in the right direction, and I hope it is an indication of visually more satisfying things to come from the DCEU. Featured in the movie poster are Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg. I’m still not totally satisfied. After all, we’re talking about cherished images from my childhood here, but I’m willing to keep my mind open for the time being.

You can’t go wrong with imitating an Alex Ross poster. I was enthused about the following version as well. It gives an indication that Superman isn’t going to stay dead (surprise, surprise). They might even redeem the colors in his costume. Then again, am I looking at a fan art insert? The lighting on the Kryptonian doesn’t seem to match.

The trailer showed some good action scenes, some good dialogue, and some dialogue that still makes me wince. From the studio that brought you, “The bat’s dead; bury it,” we now have “Dressed like a bat; I can dig it.” Delivered by the king of Atlantis, no less. I read that Joss Whedon has been brought into the project, but I don’t know how much influence he’ll have since the filming was completed before he came on board. From all this, I expect that the final version of the movie will be uneven, but I think it will be worth seeing. I will test this hypothesis by firmly planting my 64-year-old derriere in a theater seat come November.