This post is from a transcript of my Youtube video of the same name.
Welcome to Multiversatile. My name is Jake Long, and I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season. Today’s video is about an idea for a Justice League movie in the new Phase 1 of the DCU. The slate that I laid out in my last video included Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman, Flash, and then Justice League. Premises for those movie ideas can be found in that video and in a few separate videos as well in this playlist. I still have some more work to do with Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Flash, and possibly Superman, but let’s get back to the culminating movie Justice League: Mageddon.
I see this movie going two different ways. As it is planned, it will finish off Phase 1 of the DCU, another way to go about it, would be to start with a Justice League movie and then do individual movies, but I’ll talk more about that later. The movie would pick up at the end of the Flash movie where Flash makes a world threatening discovery just after he has parted ways with Batman. He is out going for a run around the world because he can and he sees something entering the atmosphere. He calls Batman back with the emergency communication device that he just got from him. Flash follows its trajectory and finds that it is a space ship. It lands in the Indian Ocean just outside of Egypt.
Flash super speeds and rescues the two passengers, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern. Batman is there and Flash asks him how he got there so fast and then remembers Batman’s satellites. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl explain that they were on their way back to Earth from Thanagar when they got attacked by a ship full of unknown aliens who were seemingly possessed with rage. Hawkgirl recognized that they might be possessed by a legendary creature known as Mageddon. They were headed to Egypt so that she could find the plans to build a weapon that was once used against Mageddon on a different civilization.
The four of them go to search for the plans while Hawkgirl explains the destructive capability of the creature. She tells them of its telepathic nature and how it starts an invasion by accentuating the dark nature within a planet’s inhabitants. They need the weapon so that they can go back and try to save that other planet. Batman asks, “How do you know if Mageddon hasn’t already infected one of you two?” She explains that if the creature is millions of miles away, hosts can only infect other beings through physical touch.
Just as they are about to discover the plans, one of the aliens from the other ship shows up and destroys the plans. They all avoid getting touched by the alien. Green Lantern puts him in a green light prison and they bring him to a building in Metropolis that Batman owns. Superman and Martian Manhunter meet them there. Martian Manhunter telepathically expels Mageddon’s presence from the alien, but there is still a chance that the creature will come to earth but it is unlikely since the alien didn’t touch any of them. However unbeknownst to them, the alien did shake hands with a local resident.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor shows up in Egypt the next day to investigate the crash landing. Lately, white collar crimes have been keeping him busy and he has been avoiding anything that will tarnish his reputation in his future bid for President. I think I had him as President in the Superman movie, but I think it would be better if we save that for later. For now, he is just trying to be a generous, philanthropic, and driven business man. One of his many interests however, are aliens. He is obsessed with finding out more about Superman as always, and he can’t resist personally investigating a crash in Egypt. The government covers it up of course, even though the public knows that there is at least one alien flying around and protecting them.
So of course, Mageddon’s presence has been spreading quickly and is drawn toward Lex Luthor. After he is infected, Lex Luthor becomes less worried about the long game of crime and more interested in quick world dominating results. He goes back to Metropolis and organizes a team of criminals. This is the Injustice League of course, but I don’t think they should be called that. One of the criminals could say it as a joke for the movie though. Anyway, Lex’s team would be made up of himself, Two-Face (who is the current big gang boss in Gotham), Dr. Light, Circe, and Catwoman. We could have the Joker in there, but I think it might be kind of fun to show him angry about not getting recruited and maybe have them team up in the future.
There is one final member of Lex’s team and he is discovered and recruited by Two Face. His name is Prometheus and he is kind of like DC’s version of Taskmaster which gives DC an opportunity to outshine Marvel. Taskmaster was kind of cool in Black Widow but could have been much better. Anyway, Two Face likes this guy because his origin is almost the opposite of Batman’s. Prometheus’ parents were criminals who were gunned down by the police in a shootout. By the way, Two Face knows Bruce Wayne is Batman but he flipped a coin and decided that he wouldn’t tell anyone else. The level of crazy in Gotham is just astounding.
From here, things start to escalate with the Injustice League executing various strikes around the country. The superheroes unite to fight them and end up forming the Justice League. As you can see, this is a different and sort of odd approach since the Injustice League is formed before the Justice League even though many of the members of Justice League already knew each other they just hadn’t formed a team yet. Then they would use Batman’s building in Metropolis as their Watchtower. An orbiting space station would also be really cool so I’m still debating on which direction to go. Prometheus would find this headquarters, infiltrate it, and weaken the league nearly killing them. Mageddon invades Earth not long after. By the way, I’m not sure if the original comic book writers go the name Mageddon just by dropping the Ar from Armageddon or maybe Mageddon means something different without the Ar.
Anyway, that is the premise for the Justice League movie, but I want to go back and talk about the possibility of starting the DCU with a Justice League movie. I don’t think they’ll do that since James Gunn has already mentioned on Twitter that he is writing a Superman movie now, however it could just be a Superman movie that follows the events of a Justice League movie. I kind of hope they do this, because it is a simple way to do things a little bit different than the MCU, and it could be fun. If this is the way they go about it, Green Lantern’s adventure with Hawkgirl in his movie could be a prequel or perhaps Hawkgirl comes to Earth by herself in the Justice League and then leaves with Green Lantern later.
I do think that starting the DCU with the Justice League as a team can work. I mean, if we look at the Amazon series, The Boys it works really well as an established team that takes on the newcomer Stargirl. If it can work for a dark parody of the source material than it can work for the source material. And I know there is a Boys comic book series, but we all know the Justice League is the one of the major inspirations for the Boys. Now, it may be easier to pull of with a show instead of a movie, but they still needed to make that first episode in such a way to sell the story with a team and their antagonists. And of course, the Boys is mainly about the vigilante team looking to take down the evil Justice League known as The Seven, but you get the idea.
I’ve talked about other movies that worked as an ensemble movie. The first X-men movie, Ocean’s 11, and The Fellowship of the Ring are all good if not great examples of how this can work. And if you think about it, superhero movies always have a team, even if it’s a small team with individuals that play a small role. In Batman Begins, Batman has the help of Alfred, Lucious Fox, Commissioner Gordon, and Rachel. Gordon is even out in the midst of the action. Of course that’s because he is a cop, and he and Batman aren’t on some sort of official team, but they are working together.
I realize it is different when you want all of the heroes to essentially be the main character, but I still think it can work, and it may be a good idea to focus on one of the characters a little more than the rest. With the Justice League, I’d prefer to focus on one of the big 3: Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman but with the story we have here, I might lean towards focusing on Hawkgirl. I think I would still focus on Superman though, and make it about him learning to become a great leader while they face these threats together as a team.
Anyway, though, that is all for me today. I hope you enjoyed this video, and if you did, please hit that like button, and subscribe for more similar videos. Leave a comment below if you feel so inclined, and thanks for watching. Take care.
Leave a Reply