DCU Projects Ranked
Peacemaker season 2 has ended, which means we now have three projects within the DCU. All coincidentally written and directed by James Gunn. How do I rank these projects? What’s my favorite and least favorite? Let’s talk about it!
3. Peacemaker Season 2: While this show is in last place I don’t think it’s bad, but it’s the most frustrating and disappointing project within the DCU. In individual scenes the show is great. The season is about the multiverse but it uses the multiverse gimmick to provide a character arc for Peacemaker. It uses it for character and so despite the multiverse being overused, James Gunn found a way to make it new and different. The season is still really funny, every episode has all of these moments that have you laughing out loud. Tim Meadows is one of the comedic standouts of the season, his conversation with Economos in episode 2 had me dying. You get a very different performance out of John Cena, he gets all of these funny moments and Peacemaker being himself. But you also get this dramatic side of the character, you get the human side of the character. In this show, you get to see more of Cena’s dramatic acting abilities and they’re believable. There’s a lot about this season that I really enjoyed and made it a fun season of television. But when we got the finale I thought it highlighted the problems with the season as a whole. If I was evaluating the season based on episodes 1-7, it would’ve been #2 on this list. But the finale made it clear that the structure and pacing of the season was so weird. The season takes its time with ARGUS breaking into Peacemaker’s house and having Peacemaker explore this alternate dimension. Episode seven basically ends the conflict of the season and episode eight feels like they did season three in one episode. The season finale has Peacemaker in prison, Peacemaker getting out of prison, ARGUS using the door to explore another dimension, Flag working with Lex Luthor to find a prison planet, Peacemaker and his friends forming their own group. That’s the plot of the finale and that’s enough plot for season three of the show. The pacing of the season was really weird and hurt the overall quality of the season and made season two a big disappointment and step down from season one. The season isn’t bad, but it’s not as good as it could’ve and should’ve been.
2. Creature Commandos Season 1: This is the first DCU project that we got and it makes it clear what from the DCEU is canon to the DCU. The best and worst thing about the show is that it encapsulates what Gunn is so good at. He has a knack of taking these obscure insane characters and making them relatable and human. He did that with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Peacemaker and he applies that to this show. He creates a new batch of weird characters that by the end of it you care about and you’re rooting for them. At the same time, that’s the bag of tricks that we’ve seen Gunn do before. Parts of it feel very familiar and repetitive because we’ve seen Gunn do this multiple times before. Since Gunn is a very talented creative, it’s still a lot of fun and a season of television that I thoroughly enjoyed. One of the things I really liked about the show was that since it was animated, it could get away and do things that you couldn’t do in live action. Projects like The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker are very violent, there’s lots of gore in there but I felt like with Creature Commandos it’s more violent. There’s multiple action sequences in here that really go for it and I found it refreshing to see a rated-R animated tv show that wasn’t afraid to go for it. Tied to that, we got an entire episode about Weasel’s backstory that’s so emotional and brutal. It’s literally showing kids being killed and Weasel being framed for it even though he was trying to save him. You do that in live action and it plays differently and has a bit more of a meanness to it. But since it’s animation and it doesn’t feel as real, they can still get away with it. Another issue I have with the show is hindsight is James Gunn is writing Rick Flag Sr to be very inconsistent. The character you see in this show and Superman feels very different from the character you see in Peacemaker season 2. It kind of makes me nervous when there seems to be a bit of inconsistency with the writing of characters depending on the project.
1. Superman: The only movie we’ve gotten in the DCU and it’ll be until June till we get the next film. This was one of my most anticipated of the year and throughout the year, it was really going back and forth between this film and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, when I did my most anticipated of the summer Superman came out at #1. After Zack Snyder took the Superman character in a darker direction, James Gunn wisely took the character in a very different direction. He gave us a more comic booky take on the character that feels like a comic accurate take while finding a way to fit him into 2025. Even some of the themes being explored in this film about immigration and finding your place feel very relevant in today’s world. A lot of reactions I saw when the film came out was that it felt like an episode of Justice League: Unlimited brought into live action. That’s a great way to put it and I loved that. It drops Superman into a populated world of DC superhero filled with characters like Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific that makes for a fun film. Krypto is so cute and he had my audience laughing out loud all three times I watched the film in the theater. I’ve grown to appreciate Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor with every viewing. I had my issues with him after the first watch. I would’ve done things differently but overall I liked what Gunn did with the character. The most important thing about this film is that I left the film excited for the future of DC. I’m excited to see where James Gunn takes these sequels and what he does with other characters and given this was the proper kick off that’s a very big positive. When you put the pieces together you get one of my favorite movies of the year and my favorite comic book movies of the year.
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