The state of the DC Universe is good, and if we’d sat down to do this a month or two ago, I don’t think I would’ve said that.

Mrs. Know-It-All and I did a state of the universe for Marvel, so we had to do one for DC. We showed up dressed as the super Know-It-Alls for it, and if you’re one of the SnyderVerse people, this may be the one for you. We were going to do it earlier. Then James Gunn and Peter Safran got hired, and from the minute those two were announced it’s been one thing after another. A week hasn’t passed without hearing what’s been canceled and what’s been brought back, culminating in Henry Cavill being out, then in, and now out again. It was so much chaos that we didn’t want to throw our hat into that ring just yet. It seems like we’ve finally reached an equilibrium, so now we’re ready to talk about it.

She Was Never a DC Fan, and She’s All In

Mrs. Know-It-All started us off, and she was honest about it: she’s never been a fan of DC. She’s given it a chance. She loved the original Batman, the Michael Keaton one, and she loves that Prince did the soundtrack. There were DC movies she liked. But it was never her favorite, and she’s always gravitated toward Marvel.

Then she saw Peacemaker, and we love it. The reason I never reviewed it on the channel is that I like to keep the channel a certain level of clean. We like to be family friendly around here, and I’ll be transparent, that keeps any advertisers we might get in the future happy. You’d have to be really explicit to cover some of that show. We’ve debated doing a Know-It-All After Dark, and we might still experiment with it, because if Peacemaker season two is coming, I kind of want to talk about it. I’ve loved Peacemaker to the point that the theme song became one of the warm-up songs for my daughter’s softball team. Middle of the field, bam, and the coach was dancing. That’s when I knew.

Her logic is simple. Who did Peacemaker? James Gunn. Who made her a believer with Guardians of the Galaxy? James Gunn. If he’s bringing that to the table for DC, she’s in. All in.

Everything You Saw Was a Resume

I absolutely agree, and I come at it as a comic book fan. Guardians of the Galaxy had been around for a while in the comics, but it wasn’t a big, popular title. He took something that unpopular and did something with it.

I’ve heard people criticize the pick. Isn’t this the same guy who did Guardians, and these characters are going to need a more serious tone? I absolutely believe you’re going to get a more serious tone. He showed that with Peacemaker. There were parts with those characters that required the seriousness, and the writing and the actors pulled it off.

What I feel like people aren’t counting is that all the stuff you saw was a resume. It was him saying, I can take something and make something from nothing. I believe he’s going to stick the landing, because I have no reason not to. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special was brilliant. James Gunn, and Peter Safran as a producer of fine, wonderful, excellent films, both have a track record that says we have no reason to give them anything but our trust.

I was literally saying “this is what the DC Universe should have always been” when I saw The Suicide Squad, the one James Gunn did. He had the cojones to bring in Starro as the bad guy. You don’t put a 400 foot or whatever the heck starfish up against eight nobodies and make it believable unless there’s love in it. Everything he’s done that worked, Peacemaker, Guardians, The Suicide Squad, worked because of the love.

They’ve got to start brand new, and we get that. The movies Mrs. Know-It-All did like from DC aren’t going to have the actors she’d still like to see. But if you want to clean the slate, you come in guns blazing. One idea that came up between us I can’t shake: Henry Cavill as Jor-El, Superman’s dad. Do a nice, proper handoff. Put him in a beard or something and let him come in and be Jor-El. I’m down for that.

Why It Was Ever Called the DCEU

Mrs. Know-It-All asked me whether it’s the DCEU or the DCU now. The DCEU was always the DC Extended Universe. DC has always been the people who had the multiverse, way before Marvel ever had a 616 or whatever. Extended was meant to say that the shows and the comic books were an extension of the same thing. It was a very smart marketing attempt, even though they never stuck that particular landing. It made sense when you looked at Joker, which wasn’t in DC’s cinematic universe, and The Batman, which wasn’t either. Those were going to be part of a multiverse of storytelling. But the name came afterward. Man of Steel and the rest came first, people were asking what to even call it, and then later it became the DCEU and we all said okay, whatever.

I’m a massive fan of Man of Steel, mind you. Superman has been one of my favorite heroes forever. I’m a huge fan of the Black Superman and I love him very much, but I’ve always loved regular Superman for what he stood for. Truth, justice, the American way, helping the little guy. I like Batman fine, but if I have a favorite superhero, it’s Superman. Spider-Man comes a close second because of how I was introduced to the character. I had Superman T-shirts before the movies were a big thing, and I had the one I’m wearing in the video made specifically so I could have conversations like this.

Zaslav, the Cancellations, and the Standard They Set

Now David Zaslav is the guy who runs everything, and the orders are very specific. They want a 10-year plan like Marvel. He walked in and said, why are we not trying to be like the people who’ve done it right? That’s super smart. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Then came the wholesale cancellations. Some people like the idea and some people hate it. There’s a tax reason behind some of it. They canceled the Batgirl movie, which was in post and almost ready. They’d spent the money, past tense. They canceled a whole bunch of series and shifted things around on the slate. They kept citing quality: this isn’t the level we want. Fair. Your standard is going to be a standard of excellence. Fine.

The downside of that decision is that they’re making us hold them accountable. If what you give us is a garbage movie after you said everything has to hit a certain level of excellence, and you canceled all these things to get there, we’re going to remember. And I’m not going down the road that says any of this is about who’s playing what kind of character. It has everything to do with the stories not being good.

What Greg Berlanti Built at the CW

The state of the DC Universe includes television, so we have to talk about the CW shows. At the time, DC television was having unprecedented success, and then you suddenly had the movies, which should’ve been something special and weren’t really carrying the torch.

Mrs. Know-It-All loved The Flash. Grant Gustin is the Flash. But it got to a point where she couldn’t anymore, because it felt like the same repeat of what was going on in Barry’s life, over and over, especially when it came to his wife. I felt it too. All the lessons and movement we got, the show would forget by the first episode of the next season. I’m sad to see it ending, and it’s time.

Greg Berlanti produced the original Green Lantern, and he was so angry about how that went that he wanted to come back and really prove himself. Brother, you did. Nobody will argue that Greg Berlanti built the CW. You can get into profit arguments later, and by all means have that conversation in the comment section. He started with Arrow and basically walked the road James Gunn is on now. He took a character who wasn’t that famous or that popular and made him the television version of Batman. You’re not going to give me Batman? Fine. I’m going to make Green Arrow the grittiest Batman analog you’ve ever seen. And he did.

My brother was a Marine at the time, and he never watched these kinds of things with me growing up. He calls me one day from Afghanistan or somewhere and says, dude, have you heard about this show called Arrow? He’d just gotten the first three seasons on DVD because they had them in the PX, and he’d told Dad to order him the next two. We took good care of my brother while he was over there. Thank you for your service, Marines.

While the cinematic universe was starting to teeter (it wasn’t burning in flames yet), the television side was taking victory lap after victory lap every season. Crisis on Earth-X. Crisis. Those crossovers felt like the comic book events we grew up with.

Ezra Miller and the Reboot That Couldn’t Steer Fast Enough

Ezra Miller has pled guilty to some charges, and whether or not they’ve learned their lesson, they’re never going to be the Flash again. The movie hasn’t even come out yet, and by all accounts, test screenings and everything, the movie is stupid good. Which only makes all of this hurt a little more.

The original thought was that DC was going to use The Flash to potentially reboot the universe. You’d get Henry Cavill back as Superman. The pieces were starting to come together. The problem you were going to face is that you couldn’t steer the ship fast enough for the people who’d just shelled out billions of dollars for Warner Brothers. So they did the next best thing. They hired people and gave them a mandate, and before the month is out we’re going to get the first announcements. Whether or not they call them phases, it’s probably going to be the first phase of the 10-year plan.

The Death of Superman, Done Right

Those phases all build to a major event. What if that event is the actual Death of Superman, done right? You spend 10 years with Superman appearing in things, being a helper in things, because they want to hang their hat on Superman. Then you make the end a slugfest, a knockdown. You make it everything the Death of Superman comic books were.

For those of you playing at home, the Death of Superman happened years ago in the comics. Dan Jurgens led the way, along with a whole group of other amazing DC artists, and they began telling the story of this juggernaut style creature. It culminated in Dan Jurgens’s amazing artwork in the actual death issue. Every page was a splash page. There were no panels. It told one story, and that was the story of Clark Kent fighting this monster. I say Clark Kent because Superman is the superhero, and the only way you go the distance the way he did is you dig deeper. He dug into the human being he was raised to be, which is Clark Kent, and he knew he had to save everybody in Metropolis.

I’m getting chills talking about it. I swear I feel like I’m having some kind of comic book church right now. I remember reading it riveted, because every frame was a piece of art, and frankly I’d love to own every page and hang it up someday.

We’re not getting origin stories this time. So if James Gunn has the nerve to start Superman here, make us fall in love with him, pepper him in, and get us to the midway point, then you give us some kind of a Justice League there. That’s not even the big event. That’s just the Avengers of their first 10 years. And if anybody online is telling you it’s so hard to do a Superman, the comic books have been doing it forever.

A Brand New Bag, Top to Bottom

They’re going to have to rebuild the Justice League. We’re not getting Henry Cavill. We’re not getting Gal. We’re not getting Ezra Miller. He’s getting a brand new bag, everybody, top to bottom. The Batman stays its own thing, with a trilogy planned, and we’re getting a Joker sequel. Those movies are going to exist, but they’re not going to connect directly to the main line. He’ll get his own Batman and his own Superman.

Mrs. Know-It-All asked about a new Suicide Squad. I’m sure we probably will get one, but truthfully the Suicide Squad should be third tier. It got brought up early because they needed colorful characters.

I believe James Gunn is going to do the Herculean job of writing the vast majority of this initial push. I don’t think he writes every movie for 10 years, but he’s going to set the pace and the tone. In television we have the tone director, usually the person who directs the pilot. If it’s not going to be the same director through the whole series, you hire a big name, someone like a David Ayer, and tell them, we’re paying you to set our tone, and you go from there. I absolutely see Gunn doing that. He establishes his footprint and says, this is what it is. Anybody who wants to write, be creative, make your thing, but it’d better line up with what we’re building. He’s going to be the Kevin Feige. So we’re going to get stories about people who get hired and leave over creative differences.

On casting, look at what Guardians of the Galaxy did for Chris Pratt, who was a relative unknown before it. Marvel did the same thing in the beginning. Chris Evans was middling at best, and the most superhero thing he’d done was the Human Torch, who by the way I believe we’re going to see him play again as some alternate version. I believe James Gunn is going to make stars. I don’t think Superman gets cast with a known actor. I think we get a brand spanking new guy as Superman, and if he’s smart, a brand spanking new Batman and a brand spanking new Wonder Woman. I love Gal, don’t get me wrong. But if we’re going to do it, do it right. All the eggs, all the bacon, all the bread in the basket. And an idea we landed on together: make the villains your famous people to start. The audience recognizes the villain, and that draws them in. Not that he’s going to need it. Everybody’s going to want to know what’s going on. In television we call that a looky-loo audience, the one you get when you have a pilot everyone’s curious about.

DC Studios Finally Has Its Own Door

Mrs. Know-It-All didn’t know DC never had its own studio, and that’s the piece that explains a lot. It was Warner Brothers owning DC. DC had a production office their creative came out of, but they sat under the Warner Brothers studio. The first thing David Zaslav did was take DC away from Warner Brothers as a thing. DC Studios, like any other studio, develops its own properties, and then Warner Brothers gets brought in as the production partner, distribution, the whole nine yards.

Think about where the communication problems were. At Marvel you go through Feige. He sets the tone, and for the most part they let him steer, because he always has. At Warner Brothers, everybody was hired separately, and nobody was overseeing the entirety of the storytelling. Zack Snyder was supposed to be the tone director, and he set the tone for what they were doing. After they parted ways, it became utter and total confusion. For James Gunn to get The Suicide Squad made, he had to pitch Walter Hamada and the people at Warner Brothers. That never has to be the case again. Now that the plan’s been approved by the boss, Gunn and Safran can green light anything they need to make it happen. That cuts so much time out of development.

Even so, if you’re expecting a new DC movie next year, you’re wrong. I’m not talking about the existing stuff. I’d be shocked if we got one before 2025, possibly 2026. Marvel works about a phase ahead. They’re writing and developing the next Endgame right now. In one of those behind-the-scenes specials on Disney Plus, one of the She-Hulk directors said they started developing that show three years earlier. Daredevil was still on Netflix when the work on She-Hulk started. DC is going to have to work that early.

What’s Still Coming, and What Might Not Survive

The existing slate is Blue Beetle, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Aquaman 2. We both liked Shazam. I thought it was clever.

Mrs. Know-It-All had never heard of Blue Beetle. He’s a classic Justice League character, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. The classic one is Ted Kord, a genius, almost like Tony Stark. The version they’re doing is Jaime Reyes, a Mexican kid who finds an alien beetle that latches onto him like a suit. I believe Ted Kord is still part of the movie in some form, as a classic hero type. She likes that about DC, the way people get their powers. Superman’s an alien. Accidents make people metas. An alien beetle falls out of space. When we think of Marvel and aliens, we think invasion. That’s another thing that’s going to define James Gunn’s version of this universe: they’re not going to shy away from the more fantastical versions of these stories.

Aquaman 2 is the last time he plays Aquaman. He’s said so, and we know he already has a role in the new DCU, which everybody believes is going to be Lobo. Lobo is their discount Wolverine without the claws. Very irreverent, an antihero, kills people left and right. He’s the last of his race because he killed all the rest of them. He’s as strong as Superman physically, with no super speed and no heat vision, and he’s been a pain in Superman’s butt once or twice. I could definitely see him getting his own movie.

Peacemaker season two, I don’t know. Somebody on Twitter said, so I guess James automatically gets Peacemaker season two but we don’t get Batgirl, and he answered that nobody said that at all. He didn’t say what is true. I firmly believe the insinuation was, my stuff’s going too. It’s a wholesale reboot, start to finish. That makes Mrs. Know-It-All sad, and I get it.

The one DC show she really does like is Doom Patrol, and I’m a big fan too. I’m not a fan of Titans. I’m shocked it still exists. It’s so categorically bad on every level. To me it’s a hopped up CW show that doesn’t have the writing behind it. I guess that’s my official review of Titans.

Are we going to lose Doom Patrol? I hope not. That show has had no real direct connection to the rest of DC. Its Cyborg is a very different Cyborg from whoever is in the movies, and we’re going to get a cinematic Cyborg that I don’t think is going to be this kid from Doom Patrol. Worst case, you let the show ride out another season. To be fair, Peacemaker has no direct reflection either. You saw that cameo at the end, and that’s about it.

The State of the DC Universe Is Good

So we called it. I asked Mrs. Know-It-All where she thinks the state of the DCU is, and she said it’s going in the right direction. Getting James Gunn and Peter Safran on board was a really smart move. She’s going to be sad to see these actors go, but he’s going to cast people who become big. She knows a lot of fans aren’t happy about this move. For somebody like her, who hasn’t been able to enjoy a lot of DC, she was excited the moment she heard it. “I know that sounds so cheesy, but I’m so excited to see what James Gunn does.”

I agree. I think the state of the DC Universe is good. Now it’s good. A month or two ago, before all the other stuff shook out, this might have been a very different conversation. We’ll probably revisit it when the first announcements come out and we know what the projects are going to be, because I’d love to dig into that.

Are you in on James Gunn’s DC or not? And if you want to have the Berlanti and CW argument, profits and all, have it. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.