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Six Reasons DC Might Finally be Winning the Superhero War with Marvel

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Back in 2008, when Batman epic ‘The Dark Knight’ swooped into cinemas just a couple of months after Robert Downey Jr’s big screen debut as ‘Iron Man’, comic book fans could never have imagined how successful Marvel’s then-pioneering cinematic universe would go on to be. If you had told anyone that a movie in which Batman fights Superman would struggle to surpass the unspeakably obscure ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the global box office, DC acolytes would have cackled maniacally in your face like The Joker after pulling off a particularly cruel and ingenious jape.

Eight years ago, Warner Bros-backed DC seemed to have a massive head start at the dawn of the modern epoch for big screen superheroes. Christopher Nolan’s Batman films were wowing critics and stirring up huge numbers at the box office while Marvel was still pulling on its power-suit.

- Margot Robbie Tipped For Bond
- Jai Courtney’s Insane Suicide Squad Prep
- Harley Quinn’s Disappearing Pants

But Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy was always built to be a closed circuit, while ‘Iron Man’ was constructed specifically to set up an expansive and ambitious shared universe for superheroes, the likes of which had never been seen before in cinemas. DC has been trying to play catch up ever since, with this year’s ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ the disastrous, over-stuffed result, like a birthday party goody bag packed with so many different choice fancies that it ends up making the bearer horribly sick.

Luckily for DC fans it’s not all doom and gloom. And there are even signs that the studio’s slate of movies might be moving ahead of Marvel’s - in the hype stakes at least. Here are six reasons to be cheerful if your stripes are nailed firmly to the mast of Batman and Wonder Woman’s newly-launched superhero ship, rather than the trusty old vessel currently being helmed by Iron Man and Captain America.

DC’s slate came out of Comic-Con with way more buzz

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Last weekend saw the annual celebration of all things fanboy return to sunny southern California. And according to social media tracking firms, DC’s upcoming movies soared way above those being hyped by Marvel. Of the comic book fare treating fans to a sneak peak in the San Diego Convention Centre’s famous Hall H, David Ayer’s ‘Suicide Squad’ easily picked up the most online buzz, with ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Justice League’ not far behind. By contrast, Marvel’s upcoming films ‘Doctor Strange’ and ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ struggled to make their voices heard.

Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is DC’s venomous secret weapon

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In cinemas next month, ‘Suicide Squad’ has been the year’s most heavily-anticipated superhero movie ever since that first trailer dropped, featuring Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Margot Lohan as the demon offspring of David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and the dragon from Shrek. Almost incredibly, the Joker’s main squeeze is already being talked up for her own, femme-focused spin-off flick before anyone’s even seen Ayer’s DC debut. Reports suggest Robbie would lead a cavalcade of ladies from the Batverse, such as Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Poison Ivy, Katana and Bumblebee, capitalising on the success of the hugely-popular ‘DC SuperHero Girls’ comic book series.

Meanwhile, Suicide Squad itself looks set to balance on the freaky mutant shoulders of 20th Century Fox’s surprise smash Deadpool, which broke the global box office record for an “R”-rated movie earlier this year. Already confirmed to have a 15-rating in the UK, Ayer’s film is in pole position to take advantage of a clear demand for spiky grown-up superhero fare that Marvel, currently, isn’t really providing.

Batfleck is swapping brooding angst for searing banter

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Zack Snyder and his team have listened to the critics who rightfully branded ‘Batman v Superman’ little more than a universe-building exercise disguised as a movie. And they have decided that what the people want is more jokes (and inter-superhero badinage).

Hence, the exclusive Comic-Con trailer for sequel ‘Justice League’ (watch it below) showed us a Batman/Bruce Wayne in full-on world’s greatest detective mode, as he hunts down Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg with the aim of recruiting them to take down a major new threat.

No longer was the caped crusader whinging about Superman, murdering poor Gotham bad guys with great big Batguns and generally acting like a jerk around Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. All of sudden he looks like a hero we might actually pay good money to see in a movie.

Gal Gadot looks an inspired pick to play Wonder Woman

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Gadot didn’t have all that much to do in ‘Dawn of Justice’, but the Comic-Con trailer for Patty Jenkins’ ‘Wonder Woman’ hinted DC might be ready to steal a march on Marvel in the battle to prove superhero movies don’t all have to be violent sausagefests. They can be violent ladyfests instead!

In some ways, ‘Wonder Woman’ is the ‘Thor’ of the DC extended universe, with its focus on real life gods entering the human world. But Jenkins has chosen to hand the women of Themyscira nebulously Eurasian accents, rather than the cut glass English tones of Kenneth Branagh’s Norse fantasy. It all adds to the sense of otherworldly exoticism, and Israeli actor Gadot assuredly has the graceful insouciance to play the buzzing queen bee.

We also loved her lightning-framed lasso of truth. But here’s hoping the comic book iteration’s invisible plane never leaves the runway.

DC has the thrill of the new on its side

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Marvel is doing its level best to keep its superhero slate fresh, hence the recent debut of Spider-Man in the MCU after the masked wallcrawler hot-footed it over from Sony studios for ‘Captain America: Civil War’. But DC has a huge back catalogue of heroes who have barely registered in big screen terms, and fans of the comic books are desperate to see the studio begin to claw back ground on its rival. There have been three ‘Iron Man’ movies, three ‘Captain America’ films, two ‘Avengers’ flicks and a brace of ‘Thor’ outings since Marvel first raised its shiny, power-suited head above the parapet. But we’ve never seen Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, The Flash, Cyborg or Deadshot in cinemas before, which means nobody knows quite what to expect.

Ezra Miller’s Flash is a freaky originality bomb

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On the evidence of the Comic-Con trailer for ‘Justice League’, DC were absolutely right not to give the TV Barry Allen, Grant Gustin, a run out on the big screen. Miller, best known for his role as a teenage serial killer in the horror-tinged Lynne Ramsay drama ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’, looks to be going way out on the leftfield with his portrayal of the iconic speedster as a hyper-jittery, socially awkward geek. The new Flash might yet be the most unusual superhero turn we’ve seen since Nicolas Cage’s Big Daddy in Matthew Vaughn’s ‘Kick Ass’.

Images: Warner Bros/Getty/Rex.