Fans of the DCU are waiting with baited breath for the slew of summer blockbusters. While only a few trailers have dropped for The Flash and Blue Beetle, several stars have made it to the short list for fans. Xolo Maridueña and Sasha Calle, Blue Beetle and Super Girl respectively, are two of the upcoming heroes that fans are already pushing for when it comes to the DCEU. While it’s hard to know where James Gunn is going to land with the final entrants to new extended universe, it hasn’t stopped fans from hoping for more of the supers in the future.
Maridueña and Calle aren’t the only heroes fans want to see more of; with The Flash right around the corner, fans are dying to know if CW star Grant Gustin will be reprising his role as Crimson Comet. The answer seems heavily skewed towards no, but that hasn’t stopped fans from hoping that the upcoming film will take a page from Marvel’s handbook and allow Gustin to close out his run as the speedster on the silver screen. While there is a lot of positivity on the horizon for the DCU, it just wouldn’t be our favorite fandom if there wasn’t some kind of disruption. The latest fan fury is directed at Gotham Knights; the largely-reviled show has landed on fan s**t lists with its high viewership numbers, but absolutely atrocious writing, acting, and directing.
Grant Gustin finally dashes fan’s hope of his involvement in ‘The Flash’
With the imminent release of The Flash, fans are starting to wonder if the movie will pull a Spider-Man: No Way Home and reintroduce past versions of the Scarlet Speedster. Grant Gustin embodied in The Flash in CW’s TV series long before Ezra Miller donned the iconic duds for the silver screen. Miller bridged the gap between the two incarnations during the Crisis on Infinite Earth crossover event, so fans know the two Flashes have coexisted once before. With The Flash featuring multiple versions of several characters — both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck will reprise their roles as Batman — fans were hopeful that Gustin would make a return. The actor made it fairly clear in a recent interview with TV Line that his Barry Allen would not be making an appearance, but Spider-Man’s Andrew Garfield managed to hide his return until days before the movie premiere, so perhaps Gustin is simply playing coy.
Will characters from The Flash and Blue Beetle get their chance in the DCU?
Several major DC releases are headed to theaters later this year, and both The Flash and Blue Beetle are generating high interest among audiences. Both projects were started in the DCEU days, however, so their future in the newly-revamped DCU remains unknown. If both films are as good as their trailers make them look, fans have high hopes characters like Jaime Reyes and Kara Kent will return for future DCU releases. The actors behind these incoming favorites, Xolo Maridueña and Sasha Calle, were recently pictured at the same Lakers game, instantly reigniting interest in seeing the pair return for plenty more DC content. Their futures are sloppily tied up in the messy DCEU/DCU mess that’s still working itself out over at Warner Bros. at the moment, but fans are holding onto hope that their futures extend beyond the now-defunct DCEU.
DC fans can’t get behind the high viewership numbers of a near-universally unpopular show
Viewership and popularity don’t always align, and it seems — as was the case with Velma — the quality of Gotham Knights is not reflected in its viewership. The show is one of HBO’s most-watched releases, right up there alongside the likes of The Last of Us and Succession, despite its massive unpopularity among audiences.
The show maintains an abysmal 18% Tomatometer score over on Rotten Tomatoes, with a slightly-higher — but still embarrassing — 49% among audiences. Criticized for its “rote” — i.e. mechanical or repetitive — approach to storytelling, excessive teenage drama, and flat dialogue, DC fans were frustrated to see the series among HBO’s most-watched. While tastes certainly vary among audience members, many saw the viewership numbers as proof of hate-watching, and voiced irritation that such a poorly-received show now has the perception of popularity.
Published: Apr 11, 2023 10:00 pm