Justice League Members DC Still Has to Give a Chance on the Big Screen

Marvel has done a marvelous job (forgive the pun, it wasn’t that good) in preparing the audience for The Avengers with its series of superhero movies. It started with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk in 2008 (gracefully forgetting about Ang Lee’s take on the mean green machine), followed by Thor, Captain America, and culminating in the 2012 movie The Avengers. Marvel continued to introduce new characters through feature films – we’ve got an Ant-Man origin story, followed by a Doctor Strange movie, we’ve met the Guardians of the Galaxy, and we can expect to know more about Black Panther and Captain Marvel next year. Despite preparing a full-blown Justice League movie, DC has been lazy compared to Marvel on the cinema front. Only two major members of the team – Superman and Wonder Woman – got their fresh origin stories, and we’ve got a side-flick featuring The Suicide Squad – and that’s about it so far. And the latter was not the movie I expected either, as halfway through the movie I took out my smartphone to read mobile pokies reviews so I wouldn’t fall asleep. All this despite the fact that DC has a major list of superheroes and vigilantes to choose from – and many of them connected to the Justice League in one form or another. Here are a few of them that deserve their own feature-length origin stories.

J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter

The Martian Manhunter, born J’onn J’onzz, was a member of the original Justice League, along with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman – apparently, he won’t be part of the big screen version of the story. Perhaps DC didn’t want to introduce a character this powerful into the movie, one that could easily take on Superman – the list of his powers includes superhuman strength, durability, flight, regeneration, shape-shifting, intangibility, invisibility, telepathy, telekinesis, extrasensory input, and optic blasts. Or, as the Man of Steel himself said, “He is the most powerful being on the face of the Earth”.

J’onn J’onzz shows up in several Justice League animated features, and as a live-action character in Smallville, Supergirl, and the TV version of The Flash.

Phantom Stranger

One of the most mysterious DC Comics characters who became part of the Justice League (in the comics) in the 1970s. He is a paranormal being with unknown origins – no details about his name, his true nature, or his origin story have ever been put on paper. Apparently, he is immortal, he can travel instantly over long distances or to different dimensions, fire energy bolts, travel through time, dispel magic, reveal illusions, and survive in space without any type of life support system. And he seems to know everything about everything in most situations.

The Phantom Stranger shows up in this year’s Justice League Dark animated feature alongside John Constantine and a bunch of magic-based metahumans.

The Flash

The Flash has been introduced in the TV version of the Arrowverse in 2014 after showing up in two episodes of The CW’s Arrow series, spawning a spinoff. The series was very well received by the audience – and the critics, too, pocketing a Hugo nomination, a People’s Choice Award for the Favorite New TV Drama, a Saturn Award for “Best Superhero Adaption Television Series” (plus Gustin pocketed one for his Breakthrough Performance), and further wins and nominations throughout its first three series. A fourth is in the works.

Unfortunately, Zack Snyder didn’t choose Gustin to play The Flash in the Justice League movie because, apparently, he needed a “different tone”. But since Flash stories often involve parallel universes, let’s just blame his choice on that. But this calls for a brand new Flash origin story – which might not happen anytime soon, given the recently rebooted series on TV.