James Gunn sends fans scrabbling to decipher his cryptic hints at a crossover-filled DCU future

There are a lot of pluses for DC fans with new studio co-CEO James Gunn being so Extremely Online, as it means that we have a much more direct line of communication to the creative head of a major cinematic universe than ever before. The downside, though, is that Gunn can spend his days torturing us with as many vague teases at what he’s got planned for the rebooted DCU as he feels like.

Since acquiring his lucrative, if highly pressured, position last November, Gunn has taken to Twitter countless times to post a selfie with a piece of DC merchandise or a moment from one of his favorite comics that fans can’t help but assume is a hint at some future project. Perhaps as our first sign that he’s going mad with power, the writer/director/producer has now shared an image that is blowing fans’ minds with all the potential dream crossovers it insinuates.

The jaw-dropping artwork from Dan Mora spotlights many of the greatest heroes, anti-heroes, and villains in DC’s pantheon, including a few we definitely know will feature in the DCU and many more we’d love to see do so one day.

In what was as inevitable as Thanos (whoops, wrong franchise), DC lovers are using this as an excuse to badger Gunn into making a movie or TV show about literally any character they can spot in this picture.

Others, meanwhile, are incensed that their personal favorites are not depicted, seemingly taking their absence as either a personal insult or a worrying indication they won’t factor into Gunn’s schemes.

For fans of relatively obscure DC team the Terrifics, however, this post is hugely exciting. As seen front and center of this piece, the Terrifics — a thinly veiled take on Marvel’s Fantastic Four — consists of Plastic Man, Phantom Girl, Metamorpho, and Mr. Terrific. Congressman Robert Garcia is certainly hyped for a Terrifics project:

Given how prominent they are in this artwork, you’d have to imagine that if Gunn is imparting any secret information with this tweet, it’s to do with the Terrifics. But maybe that’s exactly what he wants us to think and he’s really teasing something relating to, say, Firestorm (glimpsed above Jon Kent in the background). Unless this is what he wants us to think he wants us to think and he really is teasing the Terrifics? Urgh, where’s Batman when you need him…