Running ahead of the Wonder Woman movie, DC Entertainment rolled out a new logo for their film side, seemingly riffing on the opening credits to Justice League Unlimited to create a “lineup” of largely featureless digital figures who represent the faces of the DCU.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Given how narrow DC’s film focus has historically been — basically Superman, Batman, and related characters — the new DC logo was incredibly diverse, presenting the science-fiction and horror sides of the DC Universe as well as literally dozens of superhero characters, some of whom many fans probably never expected to see in live action.
Not that we have yet, but their inclusion in the logo seems to imply it’s coming…
…which is kind of why there are certain glaring omissions that feel a little baffling.
Not all of the characters seen in the reel are going to be involved with the DC Extended Universe — the marketing name for DC’s interconnected world of big-budget films — but seemingly everyone in the image either has, will have, or “almost certainly will have” a live-action version on the way in the current (for the sake of argument, 2008-present) wave of live-action superhero madness.
So who did we expect to see, but didn’t? Well…
BOOSTER GOLD
Booster Gold, is one of only a very small number of characters created in DC’s post-Crisis on Infinite Earths era and not derivative of an existing DC hero who has managed to hang on and become a part of the publisher’s long-term identity for decades.
…Well, excepting the last five years, where he has been strangely absent in spite of every appearance he makes being full of “Booster is the most important person in the multiverse” chatter. But that’s another story.
Because no post-Crisis DC creation except for Lobo has had a more successful run (Booster was featured in two solo volumes as well as playing a major role in numerous Justice League books and some event series in the 31 years since his creation), he was an obvious pick to head to other media — and he has, a few times, already.
We saw a live-action Booster Gold in Smallville, which ended post-The Dark Knight but still doesn’t quite fit the bill of being part of the “current crop” of superhero TV and film. Both the character and the Geoff Johns-written episode in which he appeared were warmly-received.
Prior to that, and also after it, Booster had animated appearances, which tended to play up the humorous elements of his personality. Around the time his first solo title ended in 1988, he joined the Justice League during the critically-acclaimed run by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire — and it was there that he was both turned into a bit more of a puckish or clownish figure rather than a straightforward superhero, and that he first became associated with his longtime best friend…
BLUE BEETLE
Booster Gold’s longtime best friend was Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, who died in the run-up to 2005’s Infinite Crisis event miniseries.
He was replaced by Jaime Reyes, and while Jaime — a Mexican-American teenager who gained honest-to-God superpowers from his mystical and/or alien Scarab — was a much different than the Batman-like Ted Kord, he and Booster would occasionally pal around as well.
Their partnership was most notable in a 2007 story in which Booster teamed with the original Blue Beetle Dan Garrett and Jaime in order to travel back in time and prevent Ted’s murder — something that caused unexpected and catastrophic damage to the timestream.
The Ted Kord version of Blue Beetle has never appeared in live action. A version of Ted — this one a corrupt businessman — appeared in the “Booster” episode of Smallville, but it was Jaime Reyes who showed up to become Blue Beetle in that episode.
At the time, there was proof-of-concept animation made for a potential Blue Beetle spinoff series, and ever since then, Jaime has been definitively the Blue Beetle in media beyond comics. He appeared (as did Booster) on Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Young Justice, even making his way to toys and video games.
In the comics currently, Jaime is the Blue Beetle, while a now-not-dead Ted Kord serves as his angel investor and sometime mentor. The rumor is that the planned Booster Gold movie, being written by X-Men: First Class scribe Zack Stentz, will hinge on his relationship with Beetle, and that Beetle will be Jaime. Even if they end up turning to Ted as Booster’s BFF, it’s odd that a movie which has been confirmed to be in development for some time now shouldn’t get representation on the logo, while some other characters who are seemingly father removed from the big screen do.
LOBO
Oh, yeah! And speaking of Lobo!
Again, one of the most popular characters to come out of the post-Crisis era, Lobo has never appeared in live-action, but he’s made a few animated appearances and there has been a movie in some stage of development on and off for years.
The character’s most iconic version, absent since DC’s 2011 reboot, was brought back recently and now he’s even a member of Batman’s “Justice League of America.”
The fact that Lobo is a character who has had some of the best-selling solo comics of the post-Crisis era and at one point had a movie in development that was supposed to star The Rock? Well, that seems like a character you’d like to at least pop into the family photo.
THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
There are those who would claim that the Legion of Super-Heroes — young, light, optimistic, and a staple of Silver and Bronze Age DC — simply don’t fit into DC’s post-Crisis business model.
The series had been in continuous publication for decades before the failure of both of its New 52 titles. They were cancelled in 2012 and the Legion have appeared only sporadically since, sometimes using the same operating logic that kept Booster off the pages: DC ostensibly want to muck with time travel too much since the history of The New 52 is largely young and not set.
The Legion has appeared periodically, though, and most significantly, one of its founding members has been a dangling plot thread in the background of the Rebirth-era DC Universe of the last 13 months.
More significantly for the purposes of our “live action” argument, the Legion have appeared in live-action on Smallville — in another Geoff Johns-written episode — and more than that, numerous folks involved with the Supergirl show pretty much have said outright that the Legion is coming…soonish?
Okay, so maybe we don’t know exactly when, but it seems obvious they have plans for the characters in live action — likely about the same time as Black Lightning debuts in January 2018.
…And, yeah. Black Lightning made it to the logo.
MORE FROM THE DCEU
Wonder Woman is in theaters now, followed by Justice League on November 17, 2017; Aquaman on July 27, 2018; Shazam on April 5, 2019; Justice League 2 on June 14, 2019; Cyborg on April 3, 2020; and Green Lantern Corps on July 24, 2020. The Flash, The Batman, Dark Universe and Man of Steel 2 are currently without a release dates.
More DCEU movies:
- The New DC Movie Characters Revealed In the DCEU Intro
- Ben Affleck Pays Tribute To Batman’s Adam West
- Zack Snyder Compares Wonder Woman To Batman v Superman
- Here’s How Much Influence Joss Whedon Will Have On Justice League
