The most talked about part of comic book movies these days seems to be tone. Was this film too light, was that film too dark? People say DC needs to make lighter movies, and Marvel needs to make darker ones. And while that’s partially true, there’s a huge false dichotomy that everyone falls into.
People treat superhero movies like it’s a spectrum, with Batman V Superman on one end, and Guardians of the Galaxy is on the other. Dark vs. Light.
But that’s really NOT how stories work. Whenever I say that DC movies, especially those by Zack Snyder, have a serious tone problem, I get shot back “so you just want another Marvel comedy, don’t you?”
But I don’t want that. I don’t think superhero movies need to be comedies to be good. The thing is, the spectrum above isn’t real. It’s hilariously oversimplified. To put things in a still simple but at least a bit more nuanced fashion, let’s change this spectrum into something a bit more like an alignment chart or graph.
This, I think, is much more representative of what we see in superhero movies. Deadpool is at the far corner of cynical and humorous, while Logan is at the far edge of serious but edging a little closer to idealistic. Man of Steel is cynical and mostly serious, while The Avengers it idealistic and humorous. Here’s the thing, all points on both axis are valid, but you need to know the character and make a choice as to where they should be put.
For example, here’s where I’d put just a few DC characters if I were in charge of adapting them:
(note that Im assuming the Flash is Wally West, Green Arrow is Ollie Queen, and Green Lantern is Hal Jordan. The position would change with others, ex. Guy or Kyle would be further left.)
Of course, these are just my personal takes on the characters, but as you can see, there are DC characters that fit all over the board. A more cynical DC movie isn’t BAD, so long as it’s for the right character.
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