Dave Gibbons Believes DC is Going the Wrong Direction

Dave Gibbons has long been involved in many facets of DC most notably working on as Co-Creator of the seminal Watchman graphic novel along with Alan Moore, as well as working on comic strips such as  Superman, Brave and the Bold and The Flash. He has worked on both DC and Marvel comic character art and writer. Bottom line Dave Gibbons is a well known and well respected person within both the DC and Marvel fandoms and by his peers.

While at a recent comic con Gibbons when being asked about the recent direct Zach Snyder and the DC movie-verse have been taken. His comments were less then positive about the direction they were going in instead offering encouragement to their biggest competitor (Marvel):

"I feel that the, what’s happening now with the DC characters in film to my mind is going in the wrong direction. I did a panel earlier on where I was talking about films that influenced me. What Marvel seem to have done is take their characters, with their dark side and their light side and their humor and their pathos and their human emotion, and they’ve actually had a long vision of what they’re going to do. They put together films that are really entertaining, that are exciting, and do have threat and jeopardy, but do have humor and a human quality to them, and a sense of hope. But I feel what DC had done, particularly with the Superman vs Batman movie, is that they really have taken a misstep on it."

Dave Gibbon’s observations in my opinion are painfully accurate and sums up perfectly why Marvel continues to dominate the box office while DC films have  been disappointing thus far. A great comparison supporting his statement would be comparing Marvel’s Black Widow to Snyder’s adaption of Batman. Both characters have a dark past and are willing to use questionable methods to accomplish their goals. The difference in this film universe is that we enjoyed some humor and got to know Black Widows story and became attached to her character  within the Marvel movies before learning about her dark past.  On the flip side in Batman v. Superman from the start we get nothing but pain,regret and questionable methods from Snyder’s Batman with very little redemptive qualities in the end. To be clear here within the comics and any well done movies Batman’s character is far superior but the fact that Black Widow is comparable within these two film universes just furthers Gibbon’s point.

While I am still hopeful that DC can turn its franchise around and give us the Justice League stories and franchise we have all hoped for these early missteps are concerning. Not only that but the amount of criticism that Batman v. Superman and the subsequent franchise is very alarming and should be a wake up call for DC. When further questioned on Batman v. Superman he reiterated the same point by comparing it to one of his works called Earth’s Finest.

"I mean, I wrote a comic book called World’s Finest which was Superman vs Batman, and what I honed in on, and I’m not saying this is the only take, but it might have helped, was you know you’ve got Batman who’s a dark, hidden creature, who lives in a dark evil city, whose antagonist is a brightly colored clown. You’ve got Superman who is a brightly colored figure. He’s yang if you like to Batman’s yin. He lives in a bright hopeful city, but with a villain, an opponent who is a dark great scheming business man. So the whole universe is completely complimentary."

Again he makes a great point Batman and Superman disagree most often in comic history because of their completely yin and yang styles and stories. The choice to make Superman’s story just as hopeless and dark as Batman’s was their downfall.

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While the criticism may continue to pour in I am still hopeful that the recent creative changes to the DC team will give them an open mind to listen to the criticisms such as those Dave Gibbons gave. Not only do I think that they will listen I believe that they will take it and learn from their mistakes and hopefully turn this into the DC movie franchise all of us fans have been hoping for.

h/t Cosmicbooknews