On the eve of his Superman film hitting theaters, director and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn revealed what the DCU's Gods & Monsters chapter will be about. Gunn, along with longtime producer Peter Safran, are about to debut their vision for the newly minted DCU to the world with the release of Superman, kicking off the next era of on-screen storytelling for the Blue Brand. Like their Marvel counterparts, Gunn and Safran have decided to break the DCU story into phases (or chapters), with the first one known as Chapter One: Gods & Monsters.
What will ultimately be included in Chapter One and where the story will go to bring it to a close remains unclear, but Gunn and company seem to have a super-powered plan for their new comic book movie and TV universe. This first wave of the DCU will include already announced projects like Superman, Supergirl, Lanterns, The Brave and the Bold, and many more.
Speaking in a recent interview with Omelete in Brazil, Gunn revealed the overarching story for DCU Chapter One.
When asked if the Gods & Monsters phase will focus on "how governments react to how many [superheroes] there are," Gunn quickly said, "no," before revealing that will only be a key subplot that runs through the rest of Chapter One:
Q: "Is the big story in Chapter One of the DCU focused on how governments react to how many metahumans there are?"
A: "No, that would be more subplot."
This is the first real indication of where the rest of the DCU's Gods & Monsters chapter will go post-Superman.
While the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker quickly rejected the idea that the world's reaction to the abundance of metahumans would be Chapter One's primary focus, he let slip that this particular narrative thread would still be at least a small part of the story going forward.
Superman kicks off DCU Chapter One on Friday, July 11. The new super-powered reboot from Gunn and Safran features a whole new cast of characters in a newly envisioned, interconnected DC world. Hollywood star David Corenswet leads the franchise as Clark Kent/Superman, along with Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. After Superman, the DCU's first phase will continue with the incoming Peacemaker Season 2 (due out on August 21), as well as next year's Supergirl and Lanterns.
Why I Am Excited About the DCU Chapter One Story
Even though James Gunn has said this, "how governments react to how many metahumans there are" is only a subplot to the greater DCU Chapter One story, I think it may be even more prevalent in the future of the DCU than he is leading on.
Much of Superman's marketing has been focused around this idea of wrangling metahumans (and, in Superman's case, aliens). Whether it be Lex Luthor capturing and imprisoning super-powered beings or corporate-backed superhero teams, this theme of the world reacting to an abundance of caped heroes has been on full display.
Fans have even gotten a taste of it, with David Corenswet's Superman himself, as he has been teased to have to reckon with the consequences of meddling in various geopolitical conflicts, and how being a suped-up do-gooder comes with a lot more real-life baggage than he thought it was going to when he started.
This is something that DC Studios would be smart to put a focus on in its first stab and its new universe as well.
As time has gone on, it has felt like DCU Chapter One is all leading to the first official Justice League being assembled, with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (the holy trinity of DC heroes) joining forces against a common threat.
What better world to have this team emerge into than one where its citizens and governmental bodies still do not know what to do with these heroes that (mostly) answer to no specific global power.
Corenswet's Man of Steel has already bumped up against this problem in Superman, with the public essentially turning against him at some point in the new movie.
Maybe it will take a threat greater than any one of these governments has known individually, for them to finally accept the abundance of metahumans and super-powered individuals scattered across the world, something that would likely come to a head in Chapter One's big closer.
