Comic-book characters are everywhere. Both DC and its rival Marvel have laid out their release schedules for the foreseeable future – a run of 20-odd new films such as Justice League Part One, Wonder Woman, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two that will take us up to 2019 …
So far on the big screen, there has been one clear winner: Marvel and Disney teamed up to crush all before them with a Hulk-sized fist, leaving DC to reminisce over the success of Christopher Nolan’s celebrated Batman trilogy, and not much else.
DC’s rebooted Superman film starring Henry Cavill was largely terrible, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice looks like an equally bloated proposition, which leaves the immediate future of the DC cinematic universe in question. Its star-studded Suicide Squad spin-off has already caused controversy with the appearance of Jared Leto’s Joker, and it has announced standalone films starring Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Shazam, Green Lantern and Cyborg without waiting to see how the next Batman/Superman film does.
On television, however, DC has created a shared universe that is bringing the best out of some of its lesser known classic comic-book characters. Arrow, played by Stephen Amell, did so well across its first few series that the network launched a spin-off for Grant Gustin’s take on The Flash, which has also gone from strength to strength. On the back of the success of those two characters, two further series have emerged, with Supergirl already flourishing on our screens for family audiences, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow due to follow early next year. It is showing on The CW in the US (from 21 January 2016), and will be on Sky1 in the UK.
The difference has been that, on television, DC isn’t trying to ape the size and scale set out by Marvel, and its characters come out all the better for it. The spin-off shows weren’t pre-planned extensions of a singular idea, but an organic growth of a shared universe. The individual shows have been allowed to bounce off one another, all the while encouraging viewers to watch the entire offering, providing something different through each title.
Although it’s not connected to this corner of the DC universe, Gotham is also using the small screen to explore a secondary Batman character (detective James Gordon before he was Commissioner Gordon) in a more traditional cop procedural manner, while foreshadowing the dark nights we know are coming.
Green Arrow and The Flash aren’t saving the world on a weekly basis, but concentrating on battling crime in a single city, which leaves room for the introduction of interesting secondary characters and the exploration of both their human side and alter-egos. We know just as much about Oliver Queen and Barry Allen as we do about Green Arrow and The Flash, which helps to ground the shows with a far more accessible mythology. It’s no accident that the current version of DC’s TV universe began with a non-powered character like Green Arrow, in a show that is centred around stunt work and hand-to-hand combat, with less reliance on visual effects.
The source material is reflected faithfully on the small screen; a highlight of The Flash series has been the relationship between Barry Allen and Joe West, the man who brought him up after his mother was killed and his father was framed for her murder. There is an emotional depth to the writing and characterisation that is often sidelined in the bigger budget features (unlike the original comics).
Oliver Queen, the man behind the mask on Arrow, is reliant on a close network of friends to carry out his vigilante work, allowing others to mask his flaws, rather than projecting him as a one-man army, humanising the show and character.
In film, a superhero has to have an entire origin story and path to redemption completed inside three acts, while a series has 23 episodes in which to flesh out that same character arc. It harks back to the old-school Saturday morning cartoon culture – albeit with much more real world peril and emotion. Television is the perfect format to explore more adult themes.
The Marvel cinematic universe has been breaking box office records on an almost yearly basis since 2008’s Iron Man, but it has also moved into TV. After the more direct spin-off series Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter, two of its more complex and adult characters, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, have found a home on Netflix, with neither shows pulling any punches. There seems to be a shared appreciation that the cinema is where both comic-book giants can battle it out for the broad, more family audience, while the smaller-scale television projects can cater for die-hard fans and those wanting a little more grit between their teeth. Jessica Jones is one of the darkest comic book adaptations to be shown in any form, and it’s hard to envision how that character fits in to its fear-free cinematic universe.
On television, DC can flex its muscles and experiment with obscure characters from the comics, keeping both the committed fanbase and casual viewers happy. By giving screen time on Arrow to the likes of Deadshot, Huntress, Atom and Black Canary, with many more appearing to face the Flash, the shared universe has done a near perfect job of recreating the world that began on page. At the current count, DC has lined up 11 films between 2016-2020 (including a second Flash), all reliant on the success of the release before it. Perhaps before it goes any further down this road, it should stop for a second, and consider sticking to TV instead.
