7 DC Characters That Really Need a Movie Reboot

Many DC superheroes have made a huge impact on the big screen, but there are others for whom a reboot is very much in order. The legendary superheroes of DC Comics have been a cinematic presence since the 1940s, when Superman and Batman serials were popular in movie theaters. Batman later made a big-screen splash with his 1966 movie spun-off from the Adam West and Burt Ward-led Batman TV series, but the true dawn of DC on cinema screens was 1978’s Superman, enlivened by Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel, and leading directly to the beginning of the modern superhero movie genre.

Since then, DC heroes have been a constant presence on movie theater screens in both solo and ensemble films, but superhero movies also don’t bat 1.000, just like any other genre. While many DC movies have been great adaptations of their titular heroes, others have failed to do their characters justice, with several being up for the reboot treatment. Here are seven DC superheroes who should be given cinematic reboots.

1) Swamp Thing

DC’s eco-friendly hybrid of man and plant Dr. Alec Holland, aka Swamp Thing, has been adapted to live-action more often than many might realize. Indeed, Swamp Thing made it to the big screen twice in the ’80s with the gloriously campy Wes Craven-helmed Swamp Thing in 1982 and its equally goofy 1989 sequel The Return of Swamp Thing. While Swamp Thing found greater success on his namesake live-action shows from 1990 and 2018 (along with the short-lived Swamp Thing animated series or the early ’90s), he’s never truly gotten his due on the big screen. With James Mangold attached to a Swamp Thing movie for DC Studios, that should hopefully change in the next few years.

2) Steel

If ever a superhero has horribly face-planted in their big-screen debut, John Henry Irons, aka Steel, is undoubtedly the one, as seen in the 1997 debacle, Steel. In the comics, John Henry Irons was inspired to become a hero after his life was saved by Superman, with John using his brilliance in metallurgy to develop his Steel suit and technology, and even filling in for Supes after the Man of Steel’s death (before becoming his close ally upon his resurrection). None of that is found in the clunky plot of Steel, which outfits Shaquille O’Neal with a goofy metal suit and sends its hero through stunning low-energy action scenes. Steel got considerable live-action redemption with Wolé Parks’ portrayal of the character on the TV series Superman & Lois, and hopefully, Steel gets a second chance at cinematic glory under DC Studios.

3) Jonah Hex

DC’s scar-faced gunslinger of the Wild West might be the fastest draw in DC comics, but movie audiences that know him at all know him best as being the subject of Josh Brolin’s disastrous pre-Thanos foray into comic book movies. Even by niche comic book character standards, Jonah Hex‘s $11 million worldwide haul on a $45 million budget was a horrendous disaster, made all the worse by the fact of the movie itself being pretty terrible (though Brolin himself at least gave a convincingly Clint Eastwood-esque performance as the title character). Jonah Hex’s Wild West genre origins still make him a compelling DC character worthy of the big screen, and one whom DC Studios should add to their production slate.

4) Blackhawk

The dawn of the comic book storytelling medium has its foundation firmly rooted in the era of World War II. DC’s World War II-era hero Blackhawk has survived into modern times as the leader of a squadron of pilots known as the Blackhawks, which have been revamped and re-imagined multiple times in the decades since their ’40s debut. The Blackhawks made their live-action debut on the CW DC series Arrow, re-imagined in a surprisingly low-key way as a modern security company known as the Blackhawk Squad Protection Group, but Blackhawk has still never gotten the cinematic treatment. With The Rocketeer, Wonder Woman, and Captain America: The First Avenger all showing the potential of superhero movies set in World War I and World War II, and with Steven Spielberg reportedly being attached to a Blackhawk project for several years without any real sign of development, Blackhawk is another DC hero that DC Studios can hopefully dust off.

5) Catwoman

Whenever there’s been an animated or live-action version of Batman, a version of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, has always dropped in sooner or later. While Catwoman has been featured in multiple Batman films from 1966’s Batman, Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, Catwoman’s first and to date only solo project, 2004’s Catwoman, is remembered as quite possibly the worst comic book movie ever made. While her association and romance with the Dark Knight is well-known, Catwoman is more than strong enough of a character to headline her own movie. Whether focusing upon Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle from The Batman or on a different version in the mainline DCU, DC Studios should definitely look into a Catwoman solo project to truly do Selina justice as an anti-heroine.

6) Constantine

While John Constantine is well-known for his Scouse accent (from Liverpool in the UK) and Warlock powers, DC fans have had two versions of the character to parse in live-action — the largely comics-accurate Arrowverse Constantine portrayed by Matt Ryan, and Keanu Reeves’ highly Americanized version of the character in the 2005 movie Constantine. The latter has accrued a considerable cult following since its release, no doubt partly through Reeves’ post-John Wick career renaissance, with Reeves also reportedly having a Constantine 2 in the works. While this would most like be a DC Elseworlds project, the DCU itself could benefit from its own properly Scouse version of Constantine, and with the multiverse always in DC’s back pocket, a DCU Constantine would certainly not be off the table.

7) Green Lantern

Despite being one of the core members of the Justice League, Green Lantern’s light was not in sight in Hal Jordan’s 2011 big-screen debut. Ryan Reynolds himself has since been perhaps the harshest critic of Green Lantern, and the Green Lantern Corps has been through a lot of development hell in returning to theaters. While Yalan Gur makes a cameo in the history lesson of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a cameo by John Stewart (Wayne T. Carr) was ultimately cut, with multiple Green Lantern projects also failing to get off the ground since the 2011. That is finally changing with the upcoming DC Studios streaming series Lanterns, in which Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre respectively portray Hal Jordan and John Stewart. With the series described as a superhero version of True Detective, hopefully Lanterns will finally break the curse that the Green Lantern Corps has struggled to overcome since the original 2011 movie, which in turn could hopefully bring Chandler and Pierre’s Green Lanterns to the big screen.

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