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In the battle of DC and Marvel movie universes, there’s long been a clear victor: Marvel. Marvel, for one, has established a consistent cinematic universe (its own term)—one that boasts humor, action set pieces, and a comic book-appropriate sense of fun. DC, on the other hand? It had Zack Snyder, a director allergic to every color of the rainbow and then some.
But this week, DC made the best move it’s ever made: handing the keys to James Gunn. The Guardians of the Galaxy director proved his comedy-action bonafides under House Marvel, and when it briefly fired him over some bad old tweets (trés classique), DC smartly swooped in. The Suicide Squad was an unrelated redux of 2016’s awful Suicide Squad, and it was not only delightfully gross, hilarious, engrossing watch, but it did what DC has needed to do this whole time. It created a world of multi-dimensional characters worth investing in.
Literally the night before the news broke that James Gunn would join Aquaman producer Peter Safran as the new head of DC Films, I was talking about how he deserves exactly that job. I still think about the ballsy opening of The Suicide Squad, after all; not even 10 minutes in, Pete Davidson’s face gets blown off. You think that his character, Blackguard, is going to be one of the leads of the film, being that he’s Pete Davidson and all. Instead, Gunn disposes of him in a hilariously gruesome, totally shocking way. It’s gross. It’s vicious. It’s exactly what we need more of in action movies today. (Sorry, Pete.)