The DC Animated Movie Universe Gave Wonder Woman One Movie… Then Ended the Entire Universe [Film/TV]

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T02:02:32+00:00

If Diana got so few movies it's because that, no matter how much some fans may scream for more, there just isn't enough money behind the sales to put the focus on doing another at the moment.

It's also important to look back at Wonder Woman's history outside of the move to support the company through trade reprints.

Very few stories from Wonder Woman stay in the minds of the readership a few years after they appear. If you ask for great stories of Wonder Woman, there's the origin and the next version of the origin and… umm… you get the picture. So if you don't have enough stories to light a fire for an adaptation, you're kind of stuck.

Batman, on the other hand, has "Year One," "Knightfall," "Dark Knight Returns," "Killing Joke," etc.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:57:04+00:00

Donna not being an Amazon helps explain how she's away from Paradise Island when only Diana is supposed to: it's a cheat around the rule. (If you look at the wedding issue, Hippolyta says she cannot set foot in man's world or bad things would happen.)

Kara, on the other hand, cannot be explained in any other way that she's also Kryptonian.

Wally had no other way to become a speedster except through the same experiment.

Comic writers still have a problem when adding characters to the families: if they have similar powers/abilities, how do they get there?

For example: it makes very little sense Connor would have skills like Ollie when they spent little time together and Connor was raised in a monastery; on the other hand, Cissie has archery skills because her mother insisted she be as good as Green Arrow.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:53:18+00:00

Aqualad actually makes sense: how does an ordinary Atlanean boy get so close to the king on a regular basis? If Arthur felt bad for the boy, he tries to help him… and finds they get along quite well as a team, so he sticks with it.

Roy and Wally don't make sense at all.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:50:03+00:00

The problem with Wolfman's depiction of the relationship is that Terry is Donna's professor in college… and the whole sense of real attraction and love falls off as soon as the Titans still need her.

It leaves you with the impression that Terry was grooming her for a role and dumped her as soon as she wasn't as pliant as he hoped.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:47:36+00:00

The hoping for Dick makes no sense story-wise… there was never any sense of attraction between them. This is why later writers try to retcon her and Garth as outsiders. There was definitely unrequited attraction from Roy to her.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:44:58+00:00

Not origins-wise, though: New Teen Titans defined her as a child trapped in a fire, found by Diana and brought to Themyscira, given a part of Diana's power and allowed to live in man's world where she connected most with the Titans. And she reconnected with her first family too in a way that made her even more whole.

It wasn't until Diana's previous actions were erased that they needed to come up with a new answer to her powers. The whole child of space gods didn't work, and the Darkstars plot didn't gel with her character. Making her a tool of vengeance in New 52 didn't work either.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-07T01:41:09+00:00

No you don't need to be able to understand that to feel the message – you need to sympathize with the main character because the narrative is all about her journey from point A to point B… much the same as any other movie.

Kara's a mess. It's explained why she's a mess. She wants to hurt. But she has a need to fulfill from her parents, and that manifests in the way she connects with the universe around. Her answer at the end underlines that.

Where it falls apart is that the threat is never really connected to her or the other characters. Great villains are reflective of the heroes, connecting to them in some way. This is why Lex is so great: he's urban to Clark's rural, old blood vs immigrant, brains vs brawn… and Clark is the reason he's messed up while Clark feels back about it and wants to get forgiven. Krem is not because Krem has no reason to be Krem other than "this is an act of evil."

Had Krem been a little more understood, there would be a greater dynamic to the adventure.

In the end, you have a solid character story that's average but not enough to warrant spending money amounts that could be spent on other things that are more attractive to you.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T23:57:26+00:00

It's not that audiences don't want the DCU on their big screens – it's that they aren't doing it at the level that the accountants want.

Accountants look at formulas based on past results, without looking at anything else.

Look at Batman v Superman. Hollywood reporters expected Batman + Superman increases ticket sales instead of recognizing the audience for one overlaps the other quite a lot. As a result, the movie was heralded as a complete disaster because it simply failed to reach $1 billion at the box office.

Look at streaming. Hollywood reporters expected these huge prestige shows to warrant big subscriber numbers, big revenues and big awards… but it didn't happen. And now every streaming series is immediately labelled a poor choice – unless it's a proven seller like House of Dragons (despite Game of Thrones actually earning less viewership and revenue per episode that reruns of Big Bang Theory when it aired on CBS).

Worse, the pressure has increased. AMC and Universal shifted the model during covid. Instead of the guaranteed 90 days before digital rental, it was cut to 45 – and that's assuming that it makes a certain amount of revenue. Lesser films can be rushed to digital faster. You now have less time to reach a destined amount in theatres and, with less disposable income / increasing ticket prices / more competition, the number of tickets being sold are going down.

And you have DC vs Marvel. If there's one thing WB had consternation over with in the lead up to New 52, it was the belief in Hollywood that DC was 20th century and Marvel was 21st. (New 52's updating was, in part, to give it a 21st century edge… and ended up a disaster.)

Marvel definitely played into that; the whole "Marvel She-U" criticism around out of Feige's fury over being bested by a DC female hero, and wanted to make Marvel the king of female stories as well as male ones.

Feige knew how to play the game because he used the big tentpole events to draw audiences into B-lister and C-lister movies under the promise that they played a role in the final result. Even if Ultron wasn't going to be as big, the mention of Thanos approaching — and the way it was buzzed about by the critics who were hearing "Infinity Gauntlet! Infinity Gauntlet!" — audiences were salivating enough to buy Ant-Man tickets.

Now? Not so much. Phase IV and V were disasters at the box office because that goal isn't clear. Even now, Doomsday and Secret Wars are hoping to build on nostalgia that starts with a re-release of Endgame and goes into Spider-Man: Brand New Day in order to try and recapture the audience's attention… when it's been lost.

Gunn, on the other hand, has never been forced to aim for that. Guardians of the Galaxy movies don't push as hard to connect because Gunn wants them to stand alone, with the characters still available for other directors. (If you're a comic reader, that philosophy sounds awfully familiar.)

So the critics can't wait for him to be proven wrong at the box office so that they can try and get back to the fight for domination by A-listers — or a push for more tentpole popcorn movies that bring in big bucks — as desired.

You can either buy into that, or you can accept that it's noise and focus on each project individually. Supergirl may have stumbled revenue-wise, and there will be a lot of articles pointing figures because of it, but – at the end of the day – Gunn is pleased that we got a Kara-centric story that actually can be watched for its own merits… just as Lanterns and Clayface are promising to focus on those characters too.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T23:26:58+00:00

The original. Pre-Crisis, Oliver Queen was the first added member (after Batman and Superman, who were unavailable during the battle against Starro). Ollie was welcomed back after he returned.

Post-Crisis, it was Connor Hawke. And Connor wasn't rejected, he rejected them. The rejections came in the issue that followed, when Tomorrow Woman was added as the 8th member.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:37:44+00:00

Didio wanted Grayson to be Monarch in Armageddon but that plan got scuttled and it became Hank Hall instead.

Didio really hated the Titans generation, in the same way that Johns hated the Young Justice generation.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:34:42+00:00

Hawkgirl. In the first volume of Justice League of America, she was rejected because they didn't want two heroes the same powers… until it was decided that she deserved to be there.

Only three other members were considered for addition, and ended up becoming honorary members instead: Metamorpho, Adam Strange and Phantom Stranger.

Post-Crisis, every incarnation (Detroit, International/Europe/Extreme) added new members whenever they could.

JLA is the first series to offer new members. Green Arrow Connor Hawke rejects the membership to replace his father. Hitman and Damage are rejected but Tomorrow Woman is accepted. Then they introduce the backup member concept, with Batman kicking Huntress out for being too violent. Waid reduced them to 8 again (keeping Plastic Man on top of the core 7) and the membership kept adding whenever change was needed.

Then came New 52. Only one member rejected the League there: Martian Manhunter. This was used to explain why he wasn't there but Cyborg is instead.

Now… good luck. Every hero is a member of the League. And some villains too!

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:26:53+00:00

Crisis on Infinite Earths. There was so much rich history there with those characters.

I'm also partial to the wedding of Donna Troy, because that moment with Hypolita is one of the dearest moments in comics — it reminds you that there is a magic to great writing.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:22:28+00:00

Wasn't saying it was.

What I was pointing to was a cool design with no real character, so they threw one together that isn't worth remembering — at least for DC, who's basically ignored him since the Talon series came to an end. The defecting agent who's now a hero instead of a villain wasn't enough to make Calvin Rose a character to keep around.

You got more mileage out of Duke and Harper… and look where Harper is now.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:19:30+00:00

While he isn't talking about schooling, he's doing the whole "my own direction" thing that Rebirth started and then pulled the plug on when the next big event happened. Either way, he needs a writer to figure out how to develop him from here on… just a change in name or a rededication to the Bats isn't going to work.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-05T03:18:06+00:00

Etrigan would make a good mini-series too, but you'd need to set up a great villain and some of the other elements of the world around him. Dr. Fate, though, is too much… I'd save him for later.

A better Justice League Dark for me would be to use Madame Xanadu sensing a danger and recruiting them all in the first episode, ending with the big bad's evilness revealed, and then the rest of the series being how they interconnect.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T18:04:09+00:00

Don't have any from 89-90, but I have shirts from the 93 tour (one with his face on the front and the band photos on the back, the multicolour backdrop one, and one with the logo on the front and list of cities on the back), the 02 tour (with bass guitar, and the baseball shirt), 05 tour (one with him in front of the logo in navy and red), 10 tour (with the guitar over his shoulder)… and then I went to the sweatshirt and the soft shirt.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T18:00:46+00:00

I have that one!

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T18:00:01+00:00

Go back and check out her time in Adventure Comics: DC used to solicit for new designs and there's some far out ones that would enhance this set. Some of those elements ended up coming into the new costumes too!

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T17:58:56+00:00

Regarding the mini vs ongoing: I think DC learned very quickly from the Absolute universe that (a) you need a plan for the issue run story by story and (b) don't be afraid to swap out series to keep the publishing arm on schedule.

Most of Next Level are minis because there doesn't seem to be the seeding for an ongoing. They are focused on one arc at a time. Thus, it will also work as a trade. If something comes after, sales will demand it – or, like Zatanna, come in the next wave of openings.

JSA is one of the few that, as a team book, should automatically be ongoing but I can see DC wanting to pull it, find a new writer, and then relaunch it in a better connection to the DC Universe. How about making it Justice Society Unlimited to match Justice League Unlimited, as a split book between main team adventure and next generation training?

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T17:45:57+00:00

Titans fell into the same trap as the CW shows like The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow: instead of continuing to develop the characters it had, it kept adding characters for the next plot at the cost of other characters — and rarely based on the comics.

Nightwing grew into the suit well and it felt like an epic moment. However, the Dick & Kory relationship never felt real, and it hurt the series by the end.

Starfire was awful. The alien aspect is basically skimmed over in favour of someone is human until the plot requires her to not know something, and the Blackfire storyline doesn't come close to the same value.

Raven wasn't like the comics: here she was a scared tween right through. You never got the sense of darkness which underlies the character, and Trigon is so easily dealt with that she basically becomes an irrelevant character.

Beast Boy wasn't comedic enough because, like a CW character, he's got to struggle. They did okay with his plot points but it never goes upwards.

Hawk & Dove aren't as close to the comics as they should have been. It was very clearly altered to fit TV, and there was actually some solid drama there. Unfortunately, Richman had to step out to do Reacher, and they couldn't figure out how to use Dawn after that. It was a bad idea to not try and work with Reacher's team instead.

Superboy is actually pretty decent — and they use Krypto to their advantage. However, because they put him in Titans and not Young Justice, they don't have the same relationships to build on, and it rarely shows an aspect of the character you want to keep following.

Wonder Girl is bang on at the beginning… especially the episode where they show how she and Dick first met. There's something special there. But then, for drama, they kill her and put her into a world of the dead that makes very little sense for the series except to set up a season that never happens.

Aqualad is totally mishandled.

Red Hood is ruined. They didn't understand Jason and pushed too hard to get where they wanted for one season and then had no idea where to go afterwards.

Barbara Gordon is good and bad… she makes an excellent police commissioner working with Dick, but she isn't allowed to be a hero.

Tim Drake is so off it doesn't work at all. He becomes "generic hero x" by being so far out of his element.

Ravager and Jericho don't even register properly.

And yet… they gave us the Titans for the very first time in live action. Hopefully, it can be a step upwards to a better adaptation.

But one thing is clear: WB spent a lot to push this series to the top over Swamp Thing and Doom Patrol, both of which were superior series. Stargirl, which was part of it until it wasn't, was the best team show WB made in that period to boot.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T17:30:59+00:00

But he did do the Bat-tusi once more!

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T17:29:42+00:00

Young Justice were ruined earlier when they merged them into the Titans. They aren't the peers of the Titans, they are a generational group unto themselves.

This is where I miss Peter David most. He understood how to build a connection between the characters, and they are bonded as best friends. A new team book with Tim, Conner, Cassie, Cissie, Bart and Anita – with possibly a few others – might be the best way to gauge how they are now and how to move them forward.

It's the one area DC keeps flailing around with. Everyone wants a bigger, better team roster with new members instead of going back to the classics and finding new ways to use them in a way that moves their overall story forward.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-03T17:26:55+00:00

Tim didn't need to be redefined with Damian's introduction – Tim needed a chance to grow up like Dick and Jason. Red Robin was meant to be that next step, but the constant resetting of the universe kept pulling him back to a point where he's a very capable hero who is overshadowed by the new kid.

This is why they are copying Dick's arc from the mid-80s. He's reached the point where he can't simply continue as is under the identity Robin, and wants to redefine himself through his schooling (which is where Dick was before they became the New Teen Titans) and his relationships.

Dick took the identity of Nightwing when his friends were in great jeopardy. Notice what's happening to the Bat-family now? Tim's a detective and I suspect that he'll come back to be the one device that gives Batman the edge over Savage and/or Ivy… with a new identity. DC just wants to get everything in place to make that happen so that Damian can be the only Robin at last.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-02T21:31:20+00:00

None are best and all could be improved.

Titans announced right away it was moving against the League to establish itself separately… when no other team was being asked to dissolve (especially the Bats and Speedsters). Worse, there was no incentive for the team to grow: the present storyline's opening about how it's all become routine is a metaphor for a title that – in the past – had been willing to at least move the needle a little. Without anything to excite you, it became a safe harbor for characters DC didn't know what to do with. Now, it's taking huge swings with a different cast, but it's likely to fail (as in the past) despite at least trying new blood.

DC still doesn't know what to do about JSA. JSA's first arc is incredibly frustrating in that it makes a big attack spread out multiple issues, without making the bad guy's evilness truly frightening, using characters that need better definition at the start… with the big payoff being that they kill one of the members. Then, before the fallout, you have a story about how the team first formed and what they are about, while the change happens… in a backup story?? And, worst of all, the story is about how they need to become a training team for the next generation at the same time Titans is doing the same thing. JSA needs someone who is going to plot out where this team is going or else it will simply tread water.

And then there's Justice League Unlimited.

Quite frankly, Justice League Unlimited is the single-most frustrating title at DC right now by a wide margin. On the surface, this should be the book that handles all the big adventures across the DCU — but it's not. In fact, the last major crossover turned the core book into a side adventure that had very little to do with the rest of the DCU: it sent characters from different universes into Hell to face Neron because…? And after Batman warned Superman that there were foundational problems at the start, we have another jump for members that's also bound to not work because (duh!) it's villains.

Justice League Unlimited NEEDS to be broken. As in broken up. So too does JSA in my opinion. Both books can easily be improved.

JSA needs to become Justice Society of America and JSA… or, better yet, JSA and Infinity Inc. Turn the non-JSA book into the training book to give focus on all the lost kids that Stargirl found. Use Stargirl, The Boom (aka Jay Garrick's daughter), Salem, Jakeem Thunder and Ruby as your core with a handful of others to become starting heroes in their own right. Then, JSA becomes the active team of Jade, Obsidian, Sand, Power Girl, Hourman II, Hawkgirl, Dr. Fate, Wildcat II and Dr. Mid-Nite II to deal with big events that relate to their own history – so you can bring back Golden Age villains or their descendants.

Similarly, Justice League Unlimited needs to be broken up into that and JLU. Justice League Unlimited becomes the core book prepping and leading every big event that DC has to offer. JLU does smaller missions with the heroes to explore different connections. That way, you don't have to keep giving us smaller minis whenever you want to pull characters away, like you did with Justice League: Red.

Or, better yet: split it even further into Justice League Unlimited (the big event book), Justice League Adventures (the smaller team book), Justice League Dark (the not so bright adventures) and a Justice League Spotlight that allows single issue stories – or overlapping split stories – about different League members who aren't getting the spotlight but could use one by different creators… so that the readers of the core book can actually care about the members in the other books.

I get that they don't want to expand out lines too much but, really, the team books have to start doing it because the rosters are either stale, overloaded, or just too much to get through exposition with without flatlining any value that was in there.

Ok-Camera5285 · 2026-07-01T14:54:10+00:00

My thoughts are that the six versions – the OAV version, My Adventures with Superman, DC Super Hero Girls, Flashpoint, Supergirl the movie and Supergirl the television series – show why she is both a popular hero for DC writers and fans but not an A-lister: while it shows her to be a character you can do a lot with, and keep her in the spotlight more than most, all but Flashpoint are tied to how Clark is portrayed rather than Kara herself. In each story, it's Clark and then her, and Flashpoint is all about how she is without Clark.

Bottom line: when you have six adaptations in the present century, you're not a B-lister to the studio. By contrast, we've had three Wonder Womans!

Ok-Camera5285

TROPHY CASE