I’m in a weird place right now, as I think a lot of us are. The WB/DC announced slate of films gives us the anticipation of some things we’ve wanted for a long time: a female-led superhero film, specifically a Wonder Woman film, a superhero of color film, a white superhero being played by an actor of color, a straight superhero being played by a queer actor. All this was sort of beyond my wildest dreams just a month ago.
But the DC Universe at large is a shambles right now of terrible storytelling and disrespect for it’s characters. The New 52 has broken my heart repeatedly. Zach Snyder has proven himself an unworthy custodian of the legacy of Superman, let alone Christopher Nolan. If we wait 75 years for a Wonder Woman movie and they give us a desaturated mess of rapist Amazons and Zeus’s illegitimate daughter, I’m going to wish they hadn’t made the film at all. And that’s the honest truth. Diana, Princess of Themyscira deserves fucking better than that. We all do.
On the other side of this coin, we have the Marvel universe. Marvel is really nailing good storytelling right now, in every medium. Everyone on the planet adores the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They cast actors who are basically the comic pages come to life, and they don’t waste their talents. But it’s seriously a white boys club. There’s no reason it should be, except for the fact that everyone in charge at Marvel Studios seems to want it that way. It’s depressing as fuck.
I’m just really not as excited about the future of superhero movies as I should be. As I WANT to be. It makes me really sad.