On the 8th I reviewed a bunch of DC animated movies I watched when I signed up for MAX. There were some good ones and not as good ones. It got me thinking about what stories I'd like to see adapted into animated movies.
Because these are cheaper and you don't need to build big sets and stuff, I think the animated movies are a lot more flexible and thus you can do stories that might be harder to do in live action. It would be great if Marvel did more of them because they wouldn't have to be part of "the MCU" and thus they could use different characters from live action, including ones like the X-Men and Fantastic Four who haven't been introduced yet.
Top of the list (still)
Maybe because to do it right you'd need 3 movies: the first breaking Bruce Wayne, the second featuring Az-Bats while Bruce heals, and the third with Bruce taking back the mantle. Still it would be pretty awesome.
By the same token...
Batman: No Man's Land: Another huge comic book story from the late 90s and maybe into the early 2000s, this is the one where an earthquake devastates Gotham and the government declares it off-limits. Batman and his allies do what they can to fight the criminals who have taken over the ruins. Unlike Knightfall, you could probably do this in about 90 minutes, though 2 parts would be better.
The two stories above were key parts of The Dark Knight Rises but it would be nice doing them separately as they were intended.
DCeased: This was an Elseworlds event from a few years ago where Darkseid releases a computer virus that basically turns most people into zombies--including superheroes! Those who are able to resist it have to find a way to try to stop it--or at least save some of humanity.
With Marvel doing a Marvel Zombies series it would make sense for DC to do their version, which is in some ways better.
DC vs. Vampires: Pretty self-explanatory. This is a recent event where some heroes are turned into vampires and others try to stop them. I haven't read it yet but it seems like a pretty obvious property to make into a movie. Maybe they're already doing it.
Batman: Vampire: Speaking of vampires, this 90s trilogy by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones would be another good one to make movies out of. Since they've done a few R-rated ones already it wouldn't be that off-putting because this does get pretty R-rated. The first part is about Batman fighting Dracula and in the end he becomes a vampire. The second part has him fighting his instincts to suck blood while also falling in love with Catwoman who is a were-cat. The final part has Batman completely giving over to the vampire side and needing to be stopped by Gordon, Alfred, and Two-Face. There would need to be at least 2 parts, maybe with Part 1 as one movie and Parts 2-3 as a second movie.
Kingdom Come: This classic 90s story by Mark Waid with excellent painted art by Alex Ross is set in the future where a dude named Magog and a new generation of "heroes" are going bad and so the classic heroes led by Superman have to stop them. Mayhem ensues! If they could get the animation to look somewhat like Ross's paintings it would be amazing. That's probably too expensive and complicated.
Omega Men/Mister Miracle/Strange Adventures/Human Target: These were all limited series by Tom King, the latter three for DC's "Black Label" imprint. Omega Men was a reboot of an older series that focuses on White Lantern Kyle Rayner joining up with some rebels in deep space to fight an evil empire. Mister Miracle focuses on Scott Free who grew up on Darkseid's planet of Apokolips. He and his wife Big Barda have a kid and...stuff happens. Strange Adventures focuses on Adam Strange, who was an adventurer on Earth who was taken to the planet Raan by a "zeta beam." Coming back to Earth, Strange puts out a book about his experiences but something is fishy and Batman tasks Mr. Terrific to look into it. Human Target is about Christopher Chance, who impersonates people who are at risk of assassination. While impersonating Lex Luthor he's poisoned and has 12 days to find the killer--and maybe an antidote. The case leads him to investigating the former Justice League International--the late 80s League basically. They're all really good stories and as limited series could be compressed into a single movie or maybe two parts.
Future State: This was a 2021 event that goes farther and farther into the future of the DC universe. The Dark Detective part has Bruce Wayne faking his death and working off-the-grid without all the toys and such to find out more about the private security force that has basically took over Gotham. The Next Batman part is about Lucius Fox's son Jace finding a cache of Bruce's tech and becoming a new Batman. The Wonder Woman part focuses on former Wonder Girl Yara Flor taking over as Wonder Woman. The Superman parts have Superman going to "Warworld" and forced to fight as a gladiator until there's a rebellion. Meanwhile his son Jonathan is trying to be Superman on Earth and Kara Zor-El, the former Supergirl, turns the moon into a sanctuary. I really liked the Batman and Wonder Woman parts. The Superman parts were a little weaker and since they just did a crummy Warworld story I don't think they'd want to do another of those.
Like I said, it'd be nice if Marvel did more animated movies because their live action movies tend to do a pretty crappy job of actually adapting those stories. I mean read the comics of "Civil War" and then watch the movie. Or "Age of Ultron" that's hardly anything like the movie. I'd like to see real adaptations of those, which would probably only be possible in animation. And also:
Spider-Man & Fantastic Four: Life-Story: It might be hard to do these whole 6-story, 6-decade stories in one 90-minute movie. Maybe do it in two parts? Anyway, one follows Spider-Man from the 60s to 2010s and the other follows the Fantastic Four in the same time period, though I don't think they're actually in the same universe. It's a really interesting take that uses the whole history of the characters. Animation is the best way to do these so you don't have to either cast multiple actors for the same part or do aging/deepfaking that looks weird.
Secret Wars: The original big Marvel event that was their response to "Crisis on Infinite Earths" would really be impossible to film in live action because of all the characters it involves. Basically every character in the Marvel universe at that time. There was also a sequel where Dr. Doom creates "Battleworld" from various parts of the multiverse and different heroes and villains have to team up to stop him--or side with him.
House of M: This was a story where the Scarlet Witch uses her powers to make mutants the rulers of the world. The "M" refers to Magneto and his offspring who rule most everything. There were sub-series to show how other characters were changed. Spider-Man was a famous entertainer until it's found out he's not really a mutant. Captain America was an old guy, Hulk was in the Outback of Australia, and some other stuff. Ultimately Scarlet Witch is confronted and swaps it from mutants ruling the world to "no more mutants" that kills off all but about 200--for a little while. Another of those things that might need more than one part depending on how much of the sub-series material they want to use.
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse: Forget the movie--seriously, forget it, it sucks--this comics story from the 90s was pretty neat because for pretty much a whole year all of the X-Men books were this alternate universe where Legion accidentally killed his father, Charles Xavier, in the 60s or 70s and so Apocalypse takes over most of the world. Magneto is the leader of the X-Men and married to Rogue while Wolverine/Jean-Grey are mercenaries, Cyclops works for Apocalypse, Angel runs a club like Rick in Casabalanca, Colossus/Kitty Pryde train new mutants, Cylcops/Jean-Grey's future son hangs around with Forge and some other mutants, and Bishop is the only one who knows that things are not the way they should be. This would probably need to be at least two parts, but it would be awesome and maybe people would buy some of those toys rotting on the shelves of Ollie's.
Spider-Man: The Clone Saga: Besides "The Death of Superman" and "Knightfall," this was the biggest comics story of the 90s. And like an episode of the documentary series "Slugfest" mentioned it got dragged out for much, much longer than anyone intended. But making a 90-minute or so movie would allow the story to be more like how it was originally intended. Basically the whole thing is about a clone of Spider-Man/Peter Parker who comes to go by the name Ben Reilly and deciding who is the real Peter and who is the clone and whatever.
Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe: It's exactly what it sounds like: Deadpool goes nuttier (or sane maybe) and kills every Marvel hero in a variety of creative ways. Then he takes on villains too and even the writers of his comics!
Deadpool Killology: Deadpool kills great characters of literature for...reasons. It's pretty funny to have Deadpool fighting Moby-Dick, Sherlock Holmes, etc.
And for the hell of it, why not throw some non-DC/Marvel in there?
Die: This is sort of an R-rated version of that old Dungeons & Dragons show. Years ago a group of British kids were sucked into a fantasy world and all but one escaped. In the present they're drawn back to that world and again have to escape, which means confronting the mistakes of the past. Since I thought the series went on a little too long some of the padding could be taken out to easily make this an 80-90-minute movie.
Highest House: In this series a boy named Moth is sold into slavery. Moth is taken to "Highest House" the colossal palace of one of the major houses in the kingdom. It's kind of like King's Landing in Game of Thrones. Moth is chosen to help a woman work on the many roofs of the place. But soon in his dreams he starts hearing the voice of a mysterious being known as Obsidian that wants to make a bargain with Moth: it'll give him whatever he wants if he helps to free it. Eventually Moth agrees on the condition that Obsidian give him knowledge, heal his sister's eyes, and free the slaves. But Obsidian can't do all of that directly.
Arrowsmith: An alternate universe World War I where there's magic along with regular weapons. A young boy signs up to be a wizard or whatever thinking it'll be all patriotic and glorious and finds it's not.
Lost Light: I know this will never happen but it was my favorite Transformers comics series ever. It focuses on Rodimus Prime and a ragtag group of mostly Autobots exploring the galaxy. Sort of like Star Trek only with the humor and the ragtag misfits it's more like Lower Decks. An animated movie or two of the best stories would be awesome. Or just a series. It'd give Hasbro an excuse to make more toys.
And maybe more...?
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