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Role-Playing and Urban Legends Part 2

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In the last post, I said that urban legends have been a hobby of mine since I was 12. This has had its ups and downs.

When I was in my early twenties I worked as a clerk at a 7-11. A woman came in wanting to put up a flier warning about lick-on tattoos laced with LSD. It was a classic example of the Blue Star Tattoo legend. I took a flier and explained the legend.

Let’s just say that both she and my manager were less then pleased.

But the real fun with urban legends started when I was working as a customer service representative at Wizards of the Coast.

I was hired by WotC in July of 1993, the same month they released Magic: the Gathering. So I was there for its early rush of success.

My day-to-day job was answering questions about our games. The majority of these questions were based on the rules to Magic: the Gathering; and later, after we bought TSR, Dungeons and Dragons. However, this was a job based on taking incoming phone calls, so anything could happen. At some point my manager decided that one of us should be focused on any calls based on rumors about our games, like the ones based on the sources I cited in the last post.  Specifically he wanted a point person to deal with any question about our games being evil, satanic, or harmful. Basically, to deal with people who believed the urban legends.

In his wisdom, he decided I should be that person.  I guess my love of urban legends made me the ideal candidate.

Part of the fun of this new responsibility was that I got to have special training.

WotC flew out a Michael Stackpole to give me this training. You may remember Michael; as I mentioned him in the last post. If the industry had an expert in this field it was Michael.

I would like to believe that by the time I left WotC, thanks to Michael’s training and my own experiences, I was the industry’s second leading expert.

The method used to direct calls to me was pretty simple. The person who got the call would put the customer on hold and then yell out loud, “Jeff! Satan call!”

I ended up developing a lot of responses to that.

“Tell him I’m not here”

“Tell him it can never work out between us.”

“Tell them we’re not in league with Satan. We’re in a bowling league with Satan. And do you know how hard it is for him to rent shoes?”

“Why don’t I ever get Shiva calls?”

You get the idea.

After that I would take the call and get to work.

Most of the calls and letters fit into two basic categories.

The first would go like this: “What is this game based on?” I would be asked. “Math, basic arithmetic and a little algebra.” I would answer.

“What?” as I had clearly not given the expected answer.

“Well the game was developed by a math professor. If you take out all the art and flavor text what you are left with is a game mechanic that is based on mathematic principles.”

The other type would go like this

“Is this game based on the occult?”

“I’ll be honest with you; I doubt any of the game designers know anything about it. All the setting and art are based on western fantasy literature and most of that was derived from the work of a pair of English theologians who were writing Christian allegory,” I would answer. Of course, I was referring to J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Between these two sets of stock answers, I was able to field a good majority of those calls.

Of course, there were some real winners.

My personal favorite was a woman who called and as soon as I answered she went off, “I am going to burn these cards my son bought.”

“No ma’am, you don’t want to burn them.”

“No, I am going to burn them.”

“No, please, shred them instead.”

“What?”

“The cards are coated in plastic like poker cards; if you burn them the smoke will be toxic. Shredding them will be much safer.”

“Aren’t you upset that I am going to destroy them?”

“Why would that upset me? We already have your money. The rest is an issue between you and your son.”

My manager wanted to give me a stern talking to for that one, but he was laughing too hard.

Another one that always puzzled me was a bit of mail we received. It wasn’t a letter; it was a copy of the rule book found in Magic decks. Someone had written in Bible quotes on random pages. Well, not the quote – it would be Book, Chapter and Verse; it was up to me to look up the quotes. They were mostly from the Old Testament.  I could never really figure out what theme they were going for, since no two passages covered the same subject.

They did write one original thing on the back of the rulebook.

“I Pled the Blood of Christ on your company”

I still look at that and think that the word just seems off.

Then again it’s not like they took the time to write an actually letter.

The last one was a doozy that was still going on when I left WotC in 1997.

I got a call from the superintendent of a school district in upstate New York.

His story went like this. One of the schools in his district had allowed students to start up a Magic: The Gathering club. Everything was going fine until some parents had seen the cards and complained to the district. It was a fairly standard “These cards are Satanic” complaint. What was different was that one of the parents was a lawyer and she was preparing a t First Amendment law suit against the school.

I’m pretty sure you looked at that previous sentence and thought, “A First Amendment law suit? Why?”

This was her logic (so to speak): Since the game was so clearly Satanic in nature, allowing it to be played at school was promoting a religion, and thus violated the separation of church and state.

Honestly, if this was a work of fiction, I would have violated suspension of disbelief.

I spent time helping the superintendent understand the game, and even gave him examples of cards so that he could have the game looked at by a child psychologist. They found nothing wrong with the game, but the lawsuit went on. And from what I heard, it was going on as late as 2004.

 

Role-Playing and Urban Legends Part 1

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With Halloween around the corner, it is time for ghost stories to make the rounds again. And in my opinion the best ghost stories are the ones that grow into urban legends. I love urban legends.
When I was about 12 years old, my mother heard that a woman at our local Kmart had been killed by a snake that had gotten into a shipment of clothes from overseas.  She became very concerned that this could happen at other stores, and wanted me to be careful when we were out shopping.
Two days later, our local newspaper ran a story on about this incident. More to the point: they ran a piece debunking it as an urban legend. It was a well-written piece that covered what an urban legend was, how they spread, and some of the most common ones.  It also cited a book by Jan Harold Brunvand called The Vanishing Hitchhiker: Urban Legends & their Meanings.
The next day I checked out this book from the school library.
I was hooked. I found other books, and from there, following urban legends became a small hobby of mine.
I suppose I should make sure you know what I am talking about before I go on. Of course the best way to educate yourself on this would be to check out Professor Brunvand’s books on the subject.
Basically, an urban legend is modern folklore. It takes the form of a story relayed as being true, usually happening to “a friend of a friend,” and that usually holds some kind of cautionary tale or supernatural element.
But why I am I bringing this up on a site devoted to geek culture?
It’s due to some doozy urban legends that have grown around role-playing games.
Since almost the time of their inception, fantasy role-playing games have attracted their own set of urban legends.
These grew out of three sources.
The first was simply that fact that some people would look at the fantasy elements in Dungeons and Dragons and assume it meant the game was Satanic. The idea that any role playing game will lead to devil worship come from this basic misunderstanding. I’ve always found this one funny since many of those fantasy elements were lifted from the writings J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, both of whom had Christian allegory in their stories.
The second source was an attempted suicide in the utility tunnels of Michigan State University that was erroneously linked to Dungeons and Dragons. A student at MSU went to the steam tunnels to commit suicide by overdose. He left a map on graph paper (left over from a D&D game) of his location so his body could be found. Instead of dying he wandered off. A detective hired by his family to find him idly speculated that he had gone to the tunnel to play a live action version of the game, and the press latched onto that as fact. This led to the myth of someone getting killed playing a live action Role playing game. This myth got leveraged in an incredibly bad book called Mazes and Monsters, which in turn got turned into a lousy TV movie starring Tom Hanks.
The third source was the suicide of a high school student in Richmond Virginia that is mother attributed to his involvement with a Dungeons and Dragons game he played at school. She tried to sue TSR, the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons at that time. All her lawsuits were dismissed. In response, she formed Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons (BADD) to combat the “evils” of roleplaying. It got to the point that game designer and future Star Wars author Michael A Stackpole wrote the article “Game Hysteria and the Truth” to debunk BADD’s claims. 
These stories have a life of their own now. Even though role-playing gamers now have an image of the loner geek in his mom’s basement, many of these stories still persist. Even now, there is probably a preacher somewhere firm in the belief that role-playing leads directly to Satan.
And in the next post I will discuss how all of this intersected directly with my life.
Here is a hint: I used to work for Wizards of the Coast

The Eighth Avenger

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At New York Comic Con the big buzz was about next year’s Avengers movie. Several of the stars were there to promote the film.
During an interview Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki was talking about being the main villain against all the heroes. Specifically he talked about going up against all eight heroes.
All eight?
Wait a minute is that right? Let’s check.
First we have the heroes that have had their own movies. That gives us Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk. Ok that puts us at four.
Now let’s look at the heroes who appeared in other movies. Now we add Black Widow and Hawkeye. This brings us up to six.
If I leave Nick Fury off of this list Samuel L. Jackson will probably track me down and kick my ass. This brings us to seven.
So who is Avenger number eight?
I guess the first question is simply is there an eighth Avenger or did Hiddleston just count wrong. He says it a couple of times so for the sake of argument let’s assume he was right and there are eight.
So again who is number eight?
My first thought was that it would be someone we have already met. This led me directly to War Machine from Iron Man 2. A quick check of IMDB shot this down. Don Cheadle is not listed in the Avengers cast nor is anyone else listed as playing James Rhodes. You also have none of Thor’s fellow Asgardians listed so they are out.
Maybe he is counting someone in the cast who is not normally considered an Avenger. Maybe he is referring to Agent Coulson. Coulson has appeared in Both Iron Man movies and was a significant character in Thor. Marvel has also built him up by making short features featuring him. He has become a fan favorite. In fact since director Joss Whedon has a habit of killing fan favorite characters there is already a save Agent Coulson campaign going to ensure his survival for future marvel movies.
The problem with it being Coulson is while he is a cool character, he is not s superhero, and is not played in a way that suggests he is an Avenger.
There is one other possibility. Joss Whedon loves to sneak one over on fans. Do a misdirection to make fans think one thing and then spring a surprise. Maybe there is another character from the comics hidden in there that we have not seen yet.
Maybe there is a scientist working for shield named Hank Pym. Near the end of the movie he uses an experimental process to grow in size and become Giant Man.  Or Maybe they will sneak in the Wasp. Both were founding Avengers in the comics.
Or maybe I am just reading too much into this.
But isn’t the speculation fun?
So what do you think, who is the eighth Avenger?

Alternate Interpretations: Gilligan’s Island

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Let’s do something a little different today. Let’s play the game of Alternate Interpretations.

To play the game you take a book, TV show, or movie that everyone knows. You then need to supply an underlying back story that is different from what is the usually accepted one. And to top it off it needs to work without changing what actually appeared in the original, acting as subtext.

So let’s use something everyone knows, Gilligan’s Island.

We all know the story of the seven castaways shipwrecked on the deserted tropical island. But what if there was more going on.

In 1964 the U.S. Government decided that it needed to make several people disappear for various reasons. However it did not want these people dead in case any of them were ever needed. An ambitious plan was hatched to strand them on an uncharted tropical island. The plan hinged on them not knowing that this was deliberate and if they did figure out that they were there on purpose they would not realize the others were as well.

But why did they need to vanish?

Captain Jonas Grumby aka Skipper: Grumby was a US Naval officer who had come across damaging information about the Kennedy family while serving under John F Kennedy during World War II. If what Grumby learned was ever made public it would end the Kennedy family political dynasty. After he retired from the Navy the government was able to arrange events so that he found himself the owner of a small boat charter company in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Professor Roy Hinkley: Hinkley was a genius botanist and chemist who worked on a project on mind altering chemicals that was funded by the CIA. It was part of larger project involving behavior control. Unfortunately for Hinkley he was smart enough to deduce the real purpose for the project. In disgust he quit, and took a job as a high school science teacher while he decided what he wanted to do about what he had learned. While this was going on he received an offer to join a botanical study in Hawaii. One of his fellow researchers suggested he might find it interesting to take a charter cruise out of Honolulu.

Thurston and Eunice Howell: Thurston Howell the 3rd was an old money robber baron. Major parts of his holding were in arms manufacturing. In the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy and the ongoing war in Vietnam Howell was having a change of heart about this part of his business. This would not do, but he was powerful enough that no one wanted to risk his death. He was brought to Honolulu by his government contacts to discuss what his plans were. After a particularly taxing meeting he was convince to take a break, perhaps a three hour boat tour.

Mrs. Howell was just what she seemed, an aging socialite who was accompanying her husband.

Ginger Grant: Grant was a well-known actress and singer. She was also having an affair with a high ranking Politian whose pillow talk let her know more than was good for her. In the wake of the death or Marilyn Monroe it was determined that adding her to the ill-fated boat tour was the best way to deal with her. A surprisingly well paying musical review in Honolulu was offered to her.

Mary Ann Summers: Mary Ann was a simple farm girl from Winfield, Texas, or so she would have had you believe. In reality Mary Ann was a deep cover KGB sleeper agent. The government learned of the Soviet Operation she was part of and knew they would be making their move soon. Realizing that taking out a key member of the KGB’s team would lead the operation to being aborted. However they wanted her alive in case they ever had need of a spy for a show trial. It was arranged for Mary Ann to win a trip to Honolulu complete with a three hour charter boat cruise. Mary Ann could not skip the trip without raising suspicion so she went. Of all the castaways she is the one that harbored some suspicion of what is really going on, but can’t reveal it for fear of breaking her cover.

William Gilligan: Gilligan was a highly trained intelligence operative for the US Military. When the government learned that Jonas Grumby had information that could topple the powerful Kennedy family Gilligan was assigned to get close to him and learn what he knew. Adopting a persona that was bumbling but sincere, Gilligan was able to make Grumby accept him as a friend and confidant. When Grumby retired Gilligan joined him and was able to manipulate him into buying a boat charter in Honolulu.

He was able to Sabotage the boat in such a way that it appeared out of control during the storm the government had made sure was not reported.

Once on the island it was Gilligan’s mission to make sure no one suspected why they were really on the island, and that no one ever left.

 

Now go watch some episodes of Gilligan’s Island and see how they play out now.

DC Comics Relaunch: the first month of the New 52 in review.

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Over the last month we saw the release of the 1st issues for DC comics new 52, the relaunch of their universe.  It’s clear that it has been an initial success.  Many titles are already in reprint, DC is dominating the sales chart and Marvel is already showing signs of their attempt to rip it off.
But was it any good?
I guess the final answer is…..sort of.
There are certainly individual books that are good.  Originally I was not going to pick up Green Arrow or Swamp Thing on a regular basis, but both first issues were good enough to change my mind. Batwing and Justice League International were not as good, but good enough for me to give to want to read more.  Aquaman I bought on the strength that it was being written by Geoff Johns, and it paid off. The Superman books and Wonder Woman were well written and I enjoyed them. The Batman and Green Lantern books were continuing stories from prior to the relaunch and still enjoyable. Resurrection Man also seems to be jumping off from the old series from a few years back, but its nature makes it flow well into the new continuity and was a good relaunch of the character.
I have heard good things about Animal Man, Blue Beetle and Demon Knights, but as of yet I have not picked those up.
On the negative side were Catwoman, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Deathstroke. And each case it is an issue of bad or lazy writing. No second issues for these.
I’ve also heard bad buzz on Hawk and Dove, OMAC and Suicide Squad, but again I did not pick them up.
And on the meh side was the Flash, Justice League Dark. Both were passable individual stories, but didn’t fire me up. I’ll give them a few issues to see if they are worth keeping up with.
And then there is Justice League. The way it was written, I have no idea yet. I can’t help feel this one was paced for the trade edition. I’ll give it a few.
Overall I am happy with the books I am getting, but I see a major flaw developing. The source of this flaw is an issue with consistency of continuity.
When the relaunch happened you had some characters like Superman and Flash getting full on reboots. Others like Wonder Woman and Aquaman were more or less getting some retooling. Characters like Booster Gold and Resurrection Man are vague on what, if anything has been changed. And then you have Batman and the Green Lanterns, where they have not been changed and are in fact continuing their stories uninterrupted. 
Add to that there we have some books taking place today, and others five years ago.
This leads to confusion as knowing how characters relate becomes muddled.  The Kid Flash in teen titans, who if he? Barry Allen is not dating Iris West, so it is unlikely he is Wally West. Is he Bart Allen? Ok but again Barry and Iris are not together so saying he is their grandson from the future is still awkward at best. Is he option C, none of the above?
What about Superman? In Action comics, the book that takes place 5 years ago his costume is jeans, a t-shirt, and a cape that I suspect started life as a table cloth. In Superman which is set today his custom is some sort of Kryptonian armor. Ok fine, expect that Superman appears at the end of Justice League number 1. That issue was set five years ago and yet he was wearing the Kryptonian armor.
I’m sure the real answer was that the editors were not keeping up on what the creators were doing; this seems to be a problem at both DC and Marvel right now.
Once a few more issues are out I will probably start giving more in-depth opinions on the various titles.  

The LXD

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As I stated in my introductory post for this blog, I am fascinated by new media. Traditional media such as TV, movies, and radio is great and I am clearly a big fan. But with the advent in technology there are new ways of doing things that can open up doors to new experiences.
One example is a web series available on Hulu called the LXD.
The LXD stands for the Legion of Extraordinary Dances. It is written and produced by Jon Chu, who is also responsible for the Step Up movies. But if you did not like those movies, please do not let that turn you off.  LXD is an example of a high concept that would not get a shot in traditional media.
In short LXD is about a select group of people who have the ability to use dance to activate superpowers. Chu described it as a “Justice League of dance”.  It sounds silly but once you get past that it turns out to be a really good show.
When I first started watching I decided to go in assuming it was an art piece. Each episode features a dance sequence and I figured if nothing else I could appreciate that. And if that is the only level you watch it on that is fine. I am not a dance expert by any means, but the dancing earns the title of extraordinary. The show claims to use no wires or special effects of any kind for the dancing or stunts. If this is true then the talent of the dancers is unreal. They use a mix of several types including hip hop styles, tap, ballet, and in a recent episode Flamenco.
As for the story, by the third episode I was starting to buy in and by the 5th I was sold.
Essentially you have a very classic good vs. evil story. The LXD are our heroes dedicated to protecting the world from those that would use the power (called the RA) for ill. The ones they protect against are Organization X, or the OX. Also in the mix is The Dark Doctor who appears to be against both the LXD and the OX.
The characters are a mix of archetypes having only being misfits in common. They include:
Trevor Drift, a loner high school student who discovers he is a hidden heir of the LXD leadership. When his powers manifest his father is killed and the LXD lead by his previously unknown brother Spex take him in and train him.
Next is Sp3cimen (yes they really spell it that way.) He is a dead soldier brought back to life by the Dark Doctor’s experiments as a human/robot hybrid. He escapes and finds his way to the LXD.
Elliot Hoo is an average man who finds a pair of shoes that grant him the ability to dance and use the RA.
The Fanboyz are a group of nerds (ok Hollywood nerds, but still) from Trevor Drifts high school that learn of the LXD and want to join. They get their RA powers just by trying hard enough to acquire them.
The first 2 seasons of the LXD are 10 episodes long with most episodes being less than 10 minutes long. The current 3rd season is up to 7 episodes. They have not announced how many this season will have, but I suspect it will be 10 again. No word if there is a 4th planned, but as it seems doubtful that they are wrapping up the story soon I suspect there will be one.
Seriously check this one out. Give it a few episodes and I think it will surprise you.

DC Comics Relaunch: Fairwell to the old DCU

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With last week’s release of Flashpoint we have seen the end of the old DC universe. I can’t really comment on the New DC Universe yet as the only book out is Justice League. So let’s look at how the DCU of old ended.
Remember that we only heard about this change back in June. At that time the DCU was chugging along and none of us knew the end was nigh. What I wonder about is how many creators had advanced knowledge.
Zantanna was a title that was still relatively new with issue #16 being the final issue. During its run there was the set-up of a new mystic villain Brother Night and a new love interest Dale Colton. At around issue 12 the series was I would say midway through the Brother Night arc. I assume the plan was to go on with this story for a while.
Then we get the relaunch. Rather than accelerate the arc, the writers ignored it, Brother Night and Dale. The last issues of Zatanna were all stand-alone stories. To be fair they were good stories, but they did nothing to resolve the hanging plot threads of the series.
Zatanna will still be in the new DCU. She is a member of Justice League Dark. Maybe these threads will be picked up there, but I personally doubt it.
Wonder Woman was different in that the story already was dealing with an altered timeline. In this case the final issue resolved the storyline restoring Wonder Woman to her proper self. In a nod to the coming change Wonder Woman herself said she felt another change was coming. At least in this case there were no major plot threads left hanging.
This leaves the final story of the old DCU, Flashpoint.
Here is a case where I wanted to like this story, but in the end it just left me a bit cold.
Had this been just a simple Flash story line I would have been fine with it. But it isn’t, it is the catalyst for the new DCU.
When DC did its first major reboot in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths it was a story on a grand scale. It incorporated the majority of the characters in the universe, was played on a cosmic scale and took place over the course of a year. Basically DC earned the reboot.
With Flashpoint it was in the end a Flash story dealing with time travel. While it could be argued that it dealt with major characters of the DCU, they were in unrecognizable forms, with half the heroes being turned into villains.  None of the mini-series that went along with Flashpoint have any apparent impact on what is to come and were really nothing more than a sales ploy. Some of them were good stories, but they do not add to the relaunch in any way that I can see.
The whole thing leaves me with the feeling that this is reboot feels soft and that at any moment the powers that be at DC (Dido, Lee and Johns) can say “Ok, done with that, fix the timeline and return the DC Universe to normal.”
So in the end the DCU went out not with a bang, but a whimper.

DC Comics Relaunch: Today is the Day.

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Today is the Alpha and Omega for the DC Universe.
Today DC comics will release Flashpoint #5 which is basically while taking place in a altered timeline marks the end of the mainstream DCU that has been in existence since the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985.
Today also sees the release of Justice League #1 which users in what many are calling the DCnU.
I won’t be picking up my new books until later this week so I will not really have a solid opinion on anything until then. If I am truly honest I will give the new books until November to really pass judgment.
Here is what I do know. DC reports that they have orders for over 200,000 copies of Action Comics #1. That is easily doubling what they were previously.
My friend Aron, who runs The Dreaming Comic and Games here in Seattle, tells me his in-store numbers are up. People are really interested in what is happening and this is bringing people back who gave up or coming in for the first time. This was exactly what DC has said they were shooting for. For now Aron agrees.
His exact quote “This makes him both excited and nervous.”
He is excited because he is getting the increased sales and traffic in the store.  He is nervous because until we see how the books are received there is no way to know if these numbers can be sustained.
Well we will know soon enough. Once I actually get the books and have a chance to read them I will give you my thoughts.
And of course I wait with anticipation on how Marvel will try to make a veiled copy of all of this.

Superhero Movies. What works, what doesn’t

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After a week delay my wife and I finally got around to seeing Captain America: The First Avenger. The movie sits in an interesting position. While it can certainly be looked at and enjoyed as a stand-alone movie, it is the fifth movie in the Marvel Universe franchise (Preceded in order by Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor). 

Like all superhero movies it has a balancing act to perform. It has to appease the long term comic fans well versed in the history and mythology of the characters, like me. At the same time it has to appeal to the general movie going audience who are not even sure which characters belong to which company, like my wife.
Thankfully Captain America pulls this off.
Sadly Green Lantern earlier in the summer did not.
But why? How do you make an engaging movie out of decades old characters that brings in both these audiences?
Looking at these two movies there are some points that may hold the clues.
Both movies hold true to the comic book origins of the characters. Their powers and supporting cast are basically translated straight across from 4 color to film.
So let’s look at two areas where they differ.
First off is story.
Green Lantern was basically a paint by numbers Hero’s Journey.
1.       The hero is called.
2.       He refuses the call.
3.       He picks up the call again.  
4.       He faces evil and is defeated.
5.       He goes through a time of doubt.
6.       He makes a leap of faith.
7.       He faces evil again and is triumphant.
 It’s a plot structure everyone knows and many early superheroes used. This unfortunately makes the story predictable and thus not as engaging.
Captain America, while a heroic tale, was not the standard hero’s journey. Steve did not have to be called. He wanted to serve and had to struggle for the chance, not once, but several times. Not once did he refuse to face the challenge, even during a time of doubt and pain. The story was not as predictable and thus was able to better engage.
Next we have our leads, Ryan Reynolds and Chris Evans. Both actors are known for playing cocky characters that spout one-liners. The characters they are playing are traditionally serious men who have a job to do and don’t rarely make wise ass remarks
Green Lantern Hal Jordan is a stock Ryan Reynolds character. Cracking wise, sleeping around, and taking nothing seriously.
Captain America Steve Rodgers is a sincere soldier who wants to do the right thing, a major departure from the characters Evans usually plays.
So what do we take from this.
With Green Lantern it looks like Warner Brothers wanted to formulaic summer block buster that happened to be based on one of the comic book characters they own.
With Captain America it appears that Marvel Studios wanted to make a movie that was worthy of the characters history and bring new fans into the fold.
Marvel does have one other advantage that I have brought up before. They are creating a common continuity for their movies, just like the comics. This allows them to build up momentum over several films in a relatively short amount of time. Right now Warner Brothers and DC do not appear to be going in that direction so every film has to build its own momentum.
Time will tell if both stay there courses.