The Week In Geek: DC Comics Overload:Wonder Woman and Green Lantern on TV, Snyder’s Superman & More
Be it movies, television, or actual comic books, this is an all DC Comics Week In Geek. Ok, except for one thing, but you gotta wait till the end. So lets get started shall we?
David E. Kelley Brings Wonder Woman Back to TV
Warner Brothers has been trying for years now to get a Wonder Woman movie going with no results, and now it looks like they are rethinking that notion and deciding to bring her back to where she worked so well for them the first time: Television. It makes sense…after all, female action heroes have not fared well on the big screen, and right now there is nothing Hollywood hates more than expensive and risky. And television has fared much better for female action heroes than movies (Xena, Buffy, and Alias are all examples). Statistics show that men go to the movies more than women, and women watch more television (sports not included). So one can see where this line of thinking is coming from.
And David E. Kelley has a pretty legendary track record when it comes to television. He doesn’t make a lot of shows that geeks like us are rabid about, but made a ton of shows that normal people watched in great numbers, like The Practice, All Mcbeal, and Boston Public. Sadly, none of these shows show that he is geeky in any way or has any affinity for genre television, especially a super hero show that would require a lot of action. No one wants a Wonder Woman show where she works in an office, or in a law firm or teaches public school. She still needs to be frickin’ Wonder Woman, otherwise this is just a small screen version of the Halle Berry Catwoman….something totally different just cashing in on the brand name. The new closer relationship between DC Entertainment and parent company Warner Brothers was supposed to stop this kind of thing from happening, so lets hope that Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns does his job in this instance.
My plea/rant as a huge Wonder Woman fan: Please don’t make this Wonder Woman in name only. That was tried once before, in 1974 with actress Cathy Lee Crosby as Diana Prince. She wore a costume that didn’t resemble the comic book outfit at all, didn’t have powers, a lasso, and to say she didn’t physically resemble the comic book character in the slightest is a massive understatement. I mean seriously, Cathy Lee Crosby was a once considered hot? She kinda looks like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. I mean, just look at her.
Look to the experts. There have been many creators who have worked on Wonder Woman over the years, but none truly “get her” like George Perez, Phil Jimenez, Greg Rucka or Gail Simone. Now, I’m not saying they should be staff writers for the show or anything (comic book writing is not the same as writing for a tv show, I realize this) but they should at the very least be consulted. Greg Rucka’s run in particular would make a great basis for a television series; his run on the book focused largely on the day to day world of Wonder Woman’s embassy…she had an office, a staff, an attorney, an a minotaur chef named Ferdinand running the kitchen. The Greek Gods were still in play, but existed in our world as more modernized versions of themselves…less Clash of the Titans and more toned down. All of this would be perfect for a television series telling of Wonder Woman. And all much more in keeping with Kelley’s sensibilities towards workplace dramas while still being Wonder Woman. Just don’t fuck this one up Warners.
First Look At Bruce Timm’s Green Lantern
With all the constant news and rumors regarding the live action Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds, many have overlooked that DC and Warners Animation have been preparing another Green Lantern project for 2011, a CGI animated series for Cartoon Network set to debut next fall. DC animation guru Bruce Timm will be producing (his first series since the end of Justice League Unlimited in 2006) and this will be his first foray into cgi animation. And now the first image for the series has been released, and it appears that the classic Timm style meshes pretty well with CGI. CGI animation for television has come a long ass way since the days of Starship Troopers: Roughnecks, and Green Lantern in particular seems the perfect vehicle for a CG show. Anyone else psyched?
DC Comics Actually LOWERS Prices On Comics
In one of the first smart moves made by the comic book industry in what seems like forever, DC Comics announced this week that they are actually dropping the price of all their $3.99 books down to $2.99 (also at the cost of two story pages) starting in January. “As Co-Publishers, we listened to our fans and to our partners in the retail community who told us that a $3.99 price point for 32 pages was too expensive”. (Side note -DUH.) “Fans were becoming increasingly reluctant to sample new titles and long term fans were beginning to abandon titles and characters that they’d collected for years.” said DC VP Dan Didio in statement released this week. Considering how many books I dropped at the price hike, as I’m sure many other readers have as well, this is smart business in a recession like this. The rumor is that Marvel Comics is going to announce at New York Comic Con this coming weekend that they will be doing the same thing come 2011. So cross your fingers all you broke ass comic book geeks.
And finally, The Director of Superman: The Man of Steel Is…….
…..Zack Snyder. While this may not come as a surprise to many, I am frankly a little bit surprised. I figured Snyder would want to move away from doing comic book movies at this point and not get pigeon holed as the comic book movie guy. And after de-constructing Super Heroes with Watchmen, can he do a pure (even simple) straightforward Superhero movie? I am not a Snyder hater, I’ve liked all of his movies to varying degrees. And Chris Nolan’s grasp of strorytelling and story structure mixed with Snyder’s visuals does sound like an awesome mix for Superman. So I guess this is good news, right?
The one thing the in regards to this flick that the rumor mill seems to be churning out this week is that the movie’s villain will be General Zod. I know this is making fanboys salivate at the thought of a Kryptonian super brawl, Snyder speed ramped style, but what happened to the original villain said to be in David Goyer’s script, Brainiac? He’s Kal-El’s #2 Villain after all, has never been represented in film before, and could provide fans with the “Superman fights a giant robot” battle we’ve all been craving for years. For all the critiques of Bryan Singer paying too much homage to Richard Donner’s movies, having Zod sounds like more of the same thing.
OK, ONE Bit of Marvel News…
Emma Stone, the living physical embodiment of a John Romita Sr. drawing of Spidey’s Mary Jane Watson, is instead cast as Gwen Stacy. Really Sony? Really?
