‘I never heard of one because one never existed’: James Gunn pours another bucket of ice-cold water over the DCU rumor mill

Ever since he ascended to the position of co-CEO alongside Peter Safran, the default option for a lot of people when anything they don’t like happens at DC is to simply blame James Gunn, whether it’s true or not.

After all, it was only a few days ago that he was being accused of intentionally shoehorning wife Jennifer Holland’s character Emilia Harcourt into becoming a bigger presence in the company’s comic book output, only for the Guardians of the Galaxy director to instead reveal that he’d only found out about it minutes before the inevitable online furor ignited.

Having tried to make a point of staying out of the rumor-debunking business, Gunn has of course found himself reneging on his word several times, which is fair enough when there are some whispers that can’t be ignored. The latest saw him blow a self-proclaimed “insider” out of the water after they accused him of ordering a voice cameo from Ben Affleck’s Batman be excised from Blue Beetle to preserve continuity.

Blue Beetle director Ángel Manuel Soto has been open in sharing the levels of input Gunn and Safran had on his superhero origin story, so it’s not as if you could justifiably call Gunn a liar in the this instance. Sure, Jaime Reyes’ live-action debut might call the Dark Knight a fascist, but the creative team also outlined in no uncertain terms that as much as takes place in a DC Universe, they were very clear in ensuring that it was never named explicitly after the title hero was confirmed to have a spot on the newest roster of costumed crimefighters.