James Gunn is ready to leave the MCU behind. After the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, with which he managed to close the story of the popular team of misfits, he’s finally moving into the DCU as co-CEO of DC Studios with Peter Safran.
Despite the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery seeks to imitate, in some aspects, what Marvel Studios has achieved with its franchise; there are quite a few differences between one comic book company and the other, as well as between their characters and stories.
In a recent chat with former Smallville star Michael Rosenbaum on his Inside of You podcast, Gunn revealed another major difference in the way they introduce their characters to the world:
“If you look at the MCU, there are very few traditional superheroes. There was never a guy with a secret identity until Spider-Man. Their [Captain America] was turned into a soldier even though he wears a mask. Iron Man outed himself at the end of the first Iron Man because they don’t want to deal with the whole secret identity stuff.”
While for Marvel secret identities seem to be irrelevant, for DC they have been an essential part of their mythology, differentiating the personalities of their heroes and their alter egos such as Bruce Wayne and Batman, Superman and Clark Kent, and Diana Prince and Wonder Woman.
Many actors that have played some of the most relevant characters within the world of DC have been judged not only by the way they interpreted the heroes, but also their counterparts. So, it’s definitely a big deal.
The DCU Could Be Even Bigger than the MCU
While Gunn will surely implement many of the strategies he learned during his time with the Disney franchise, he’ll also be looking to put his own stamp on it. And in fact, he’s going to have some even bigger challenges than the ones Kevin Feige faced with the MCU.
On the one hand, the DC fandom seems to be still very divided between those who still want the Snyderverse to continue and those who are looking for a new start for the franchise, with new stories and stars for the company’s great heroes.
But the biggest problem that Gunn will face will be to connect all the projects under a single guideline, since the new DCU will not only include movies or tv shows, it will also include animated productions and even video games, all following one large story.
The MCU, despite the fact that series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D already existed, had not connected stories in different formats so directly until the launch of Disney+ and the premiere of WandaVision in 2021.
In fact, the incorporation of tv shows to their slate seemed to have caused a problem for the studio, lowering the quality of each project because of the urgency of releasing more and more titles, something they’re planning to change soon.
