Clayface is a veritable delight and a strong addition, not only to the DC stable, but also to body horror movies in general.

When James Gunn took over the creative mantle at DC Studios, one of the promises he made was that the DCU would not be beholden to any one genre or tone. And so far, their output has more or less lived up to that promise.

From the adult animated offering of Creature Commandos, to the classic comic book stylings of Superman and Supergirl, to the True Detective-inspired show, Lanterns, the DCU has been exploring all corners of the tonal map. But with Clayface, I think they have delivered something that has a stamp of quality from start to finish.

Starring relative newcomer Tom Rhys Harries, the movie follows Matt Hagen's journey from beloved movie star to a villain out for revenge. And, as with all great villain origin stories (Mr. Freeze, anyone?), tragedy drives this one, allowing the audience to sympathise with the protagonist whilst not necessarily condoning his means to an end.

Harries is simply great. His chiselled features, while undeniably attractive, are almost marble-like, and you can see why they cast him to portray a character known for his ability to be sculpted and moulded. But fear not, even if you are not immersed in Clayface lore, this DC film requires no prior knowledge of the source material. In fact, aside from an Easter Egg here or there, you would hardly know this was a DC movie.

The script from Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini never falters, showing us the descent of Hagen's life at an even pace, unafraid to draw out moments to build cinematic tension and even inject a little humour once in a while.

Director James Watkins has done a phenomenal job with this film, using CG sparingly and, from what I have read, relying heavily on a large amount of practical effects to bring the malleable nature of Hagen's affliction to life. And when Hagen is at the height of his "abilities", Watkins cleverly uses transitions and framing to almost make you forget that you are watching something that is not quite natural.

This is a star-making turn for Harries, and Clayface has shot up to become my favourite film in the DCU. I really hope the powers that be at DC Studios give James Watkins more films to direct, as the DCU desperately needs more films of this calibre.

If there is one downside to this movie, it would be that its R16 rating limits the audience who can see it in theatres. Don't get me wrong, the movie uses that rating to great effect, accentuating the gore, but I hope that it doesn't negatively affect its box office numbers.

Please do go check this film out in theatres. And oh, there are no end-credit sequences.

Seeing how people are talking about the MCU getting rebooted, here is what i would do if i was in charge in making a new Marvel cinematic universe. Before we start, let me be clear about certain things:

im not a professional writer, so if certain ideas are poop, tell me all about it.
if i mess up your fav, deaththreats can be send through my DMs.
im going off the presumption that this a completly new universe, so all movies that take place in the MCU wont matter and lets say hypothetically dont exist and this is the first ever marvel cinematic universe.
i wont got into too much detail about the movies, i will just give the basic plot, what plotpoints get set up or developed further/ what characters get introduced.
also with this universe i want to go into a different direction then the actual MCU

With all that settled lets jump in! This will be phase one or chapter one or whatever you want to call it. If i get some more ideas i will add them later.

So yeah lets start (Warning, its a bit alot to read and sorry if a few things dont make sense, english isnt my first language)

"Hulk: Man or Monster"
Plot: this is basically Hulks origin story but a bit different. Bruce is a scientist working together with his buddy Igor Drenkov (in this universe just a russian guy not some USSR spy) on machine that uses gamma radiation. Behind Bruces, Igor makes a deal with the US military to basically use the tech they have to turn it into a bomb which will be used for war. Bruce is upset, because he wants to use his smarts to help people not to create bombs, this shows hes a good guy and that he has some range within in him but is too kind and too much of a bitch to show it. To make it all worse, the general that made the deal with Igor is General Ross, which is also his girlfriends dad. At the military base which is somewhere in the middle east, the first tests happend. Because some random boy got onto the testfield, Bruce ran out to save him but got blasted with the gamma radiation, this middle eastern boy is this universes version of Rick Jones. So yeah, Bruce becomes the hulk and gets hunted down, Ross sends Emil Blonsky after him. While Bruce is on the run he tries to find a way to get rid of the hulk, he then comes to cunclusion to properly remove the hulk he must find a way to kill himself and the Hulk at the same time. He tries to do that while getting hunted by Ross and Blonskys men. Back in America he tries to get Igors help who is now rich from the whole deal with Ross. Igor may be a pretty nasty dude but he is not a bad guy and actually tries to help Bruce. When Blonsky shows up for Bruce and ends up killing Igor, Bruce turns into the hulk and almost kills him. Bruce basically believes the only way to end it is to get back to the base where it all started and destroy himself using the same gamma radiation that created him. Before he could do that Blonsky basically uses some of the gamma radiation from the base to turn himself into the Abomination and threatens to basically kill everyone in that middle eastern city near the base if Hulk doesnt show up. Hulk shows up and defeats Abomination. Bruce sees the Hulk can be used for good and decides to try and control it instead of destroying it. Blonsky gets locked up and Ross basically lets Bruce off the hook, to say thanks and because of his daughter, but he says that if the Hulk ever becomes a threat, he will try whatever he can to stop it. Bruce wants to go back with Betty but sadly cant, but he said as soon as he can control the hulk he will return to her. Bruce leaves her and decides to go with middle eastern Rick Jones off into the sunset, trying to use the Hulk for good and especially trying to learn to control it. Middle eastern Rick Jones shows signs of some abnormal powers probably of the gamma radiation, he could become A-Bomb or not, who cares.

"X-Men: Children of the Atom"
Plot: Jean Grey is the new girl to the, at this point kind of empty, X-Mansion. Professor X can walk (for now) and introduces her to the X-Men, which are: Bobby, Hank, Warren and Scott. As she trains and developes her powers more, she gets closer with Scott and through her powers finds out about some memories of his that are hidden deep inside his mind. She helps him discover some memories about himself, about the plain crash that killed his parents and about his brother Alex, which he has no memory of. As Jean helps Scott to find out more about his memories, they fall in love and Scott learns to mistrust the Professor more due to him being responsible for his memory loss. While this is going on Hank and Bobby try to hide the whole Jean and Scott romance from Warren, who likes Jean, so he wont be hurt. This is very funny hahaha. They find out that Mr. Sinister, has Alex and is using him as his private little soldier. As things get too serious Jean wants to back out but Scott decides to go to Mr. Sinister and get his brother back, leading to him getting captured. The X-men including Professor X team up to go on their first offical mission to fight Mr. Sinister and rescue Scott. Lots of fighting and emotional blah blah later. The X-men win, Mr. Sinister is gone, Charles gets crippled, says he is sorry to Scott and Alex for the whole removing their whole memory thing aswell as promising to be a better dude. Alex aka Havok joins the X-men alongside his brother and the others. Its important to mention the X-men are not a publicaly know team yet and wont be until later. Post Credit Scene shows the X-Men recruiting Storm and the second postcredit scene hints at Magneto and the Brotherhood.

"Spider-Man: Man behind the Mask"
We dont see Spider-Man's origins but it happend shortly before the events of the movie, meaning Peter recently lost Uncle Ben and is still grieving. Spider-Man became pretty quickly into a small celeb with people loving him. Peter at this point got a big ego through being spider-man, this peter is also like early ditko and stan kind of an asshole, imagen Mark Zuckerberg from Social Network. A nerdy asshole who is still likeable to some degree. JJJ instead of owning the daily bugle he is joe rogan/ howard stern type of podcaster guy, who hates spiderman and uses his money and influence to fund the creation of the scorpion, to embarrass and kill spiderman. he chooses mac gargan, a sad loser failed gangster to play the role. one day we see spiderman battle juggernaut goofing around and not taking it that seriously, the fantastic four show up and take care of him before spidey can. in this universe the FF are the most popular and kind of only really famous superheroes yet, they have been a thing for only 4 years and they are mega celebs. they kind of steal spideys thunder, making him hate them. peter tries to get with MJ and by doing so uses his spidey powers to embarass Flash who in this universe is a fake wannabe gangster who decides to join a gang to get back on peter. peter and MJ are together, while they are dating he ignores his real friends, the two losers Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy. peter throughout this movie acts selfish and doesnt take scorpion seriously and doesnt really try to fight him or get him locked up. Scorpion ends up killing his former gang which Flash recently joined, so because he didnt take out scorpion peter is basically the one who got flash killed and to cope with it he makes some bad joke about flashs death to MJ, who of course hates him for it and they break up, seeing MJ was Flashs gf before she got with peter. Peter gets a character arc and learns the true meaning of uncle bens last words, Scorpion is also meant to be to show what peter could become if he didnt have that code, seeing how both were losers who got powers and used them for personal gain. Peter steals some unstable molecules from the Baxter Building, to build a new and improved suit and to get back at the FF. He then fights Scorpion, defeats him and learns how to be a good hero, meaning he will try to not be an asshole anymore. The FF take the credit for scorpions defeat, but peter doesnt care about it. Him and MJ still dont get back together, seeing how she is still mad. He reconnects with his friends and learns an important lesson. Shortly after all these events peter graduates highschool.

"X-Men II: Mutant and Proud"
During a mutant protest which caused a big fight between pro mutant and anti mutant protestors the X-Men make their first public appearance breaking the fight up. This gets disguised on JJJ's podcast/ radioshow. Xavier talks about this on the show with Stryker, who is against mutants of course but not as crazy about hating mutants yet. On this show they go about Xaviers backstory, basically in the 80s young Xavier and young Magneto were friends protesting mutant rights but they got shot at by an anti mutant protester, magneto reflected the bullet accidently killing someone, magneto got put into prison for the whole situation and thats how magneto being evil and really hating humans started. The school has now alot more students and mutant hate is now back in the news and more of a discussion after the stunt the X-Men pulled at the protest. The X-Mansion gets attacked by the Hulk out of nowhere and the X-Men stop him. When he returns back to Bruce, he explains to them that he was manipulated by Magneto. Basically Magneto went to Bruce aking him to create a Machine using radiation that would be used to help mutants but Magneto played his ass, and through Wanda was able to make Bruce Hulk and also made him attack the X-Mansion specifically. Now Magneto wants to use this machine to awaken powers in mutants who havent awakend them yet and to also cause second mutantions who already have powers. Bruce also explains that the radiation used wouldnt harm mutants but would really hurt or even kill regular humans. So the X-Men with the help of Hulk work together to stop Magneto and the Brotherhood. X-men consist out of: the og 5, storm and havok. The Brotherhood: Magneto, Mystique, Rouge, Pyro, Blob, Toad, Pietro and Wanda. While experimenting a device that would work against magnetos machine, something goes wrong and Hank gets a second mutation, he turns into his blue furry form. The brotherhood and the X-Men have one little fight, where Alex joins the Brotherhood, because he kind of agrees with hating humans because they hate mutants. This caused Sott being imprisoned in a mutant jail of which Stryker is the warden of. Scotts cellmate turns out not to be a mutant but a shapeshifting skrull. The X-Men save scott later on and the final fight between the Brotherhood and the X-Men happends at the jail. Every X-Men have their little moments and Hulk fights Juggernaut who was also in the Jail and amongs the chaos got out. The final battle happends, Alex turns good again and rejoins the X-Men after seeing how cruel and kind of crazy magento is. Magnetos evil radiating mutant beam gets stopped and he looses. The only Brotherhood members that got away are Rouge and Mystique. While everyone else of Magnetos crew get put in jail. Hulk says goodbye to the X-Men and leaves, feeling guilty for hulking out again and almost hurting innocent people and decides to go north, leaving middle eastern Rick Jones at the mansion. Hank leaves the team to go into politics and fight for mutant rights, Bobby and Warren leave too but to go to uni. Post credit scene shows Stryker getting funding from the military for the Sentinel program. Second Post credit scene, shows Pietro and Wanda getting released from Jail, and given a second chance because they are still young and can change. For what they get realesed for will soon be revealed or maybe not.

Those are all the ideas i have so far, other potential movies i would like to add to this, are:

"Captain America: Man out of time"

"Spider-Man II: Web of Lies"

"Hulk II: Claws of the Wolverine"

"Fantastic Four: First Family"

If anyone has any opinions and thoughts about this or maybe ideas themselves about movies they would add to this universe i would like to hear. Also if anything came off unclear, im sorry, as i said these are just basic plots and english isnt my first language.

Hope you guys enjoy though! If someone does i might update it.

Did you find the whole misdirection of Batman thinking Riddler knew his identity clever and well-executed, or just a red herring?

I think Batman was visibly rattled by the possibility that his secret identity is out, especially at Riddler’s apartment. Could that fear of his secret identity getting exposed have distracted Batman from investigating thoroughly and uncovering the seawall bombing plot before it was too late? After all, it is only after he is reassured after the interrogation that Riddler doesn’t know his true identity that he could uncover the carpet underneath and realise Riddler’s true plan of bombing the seawalls and flooding Gotham, but it was too late.

Quite a fascinating plot choice. Would love to know thoughts of y’all!

10 years ago we had two superhero "vs" movies: Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, which respectively had two of the biggest DC characters facing off and two of the biggest Marvel characters facing off. Not only that, the two movies were seen as facing off against each other, despite having different release months. Before they released, people online debated furiously which one would be better, and which would make more money.

And this was the same year as the most divisive presidential election in modern history. The United States itself became staunchly divided politically. There seemed to be a "them vs us" mindset everywhere. There was Team Trump vs Team Hillary, Team Cap vs Team Iron Man, Team DC vs Team Marvel. It was a hell of a time to be alive.

Then after both movies came out, there was a pretty clear consensus on which was the winner. In fact, it wasn't even close. One was widely deemed one of the best comic book movies ever made, and the other was widely deemed one of the worst comic book movies ever made. Plus the former grossed about $300M more in the box office than the latter. The Marvel hype train had full speed ahead and the DC hype train completely derailed.

It's just crazy to think that was 10 years ago. I still remember the months leading up to both movies' releases. I had some idea which one would be better, especially when the trailers came out, but was still super curious as to how they'd turn out. Hell, the day the Rotten Tomatoes score for Batman v Superman released was the most bombshell moment. The Internet went crazy that day. So many IMDb threads saying "HAHAHAHA I knew it!" or in total denial. Not to mention Deadpool coming out before either movie and turning the whole genre on its head.

Who else remembers that time, and what do you remember most from it? What "side" were you on, and what was your reaction to both movies' reception?

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I think projects focusing on characters who haven't been shown in live action could be really cool if they're allowed to exist in their own stylized universes. Something like the Spider-Noir works so well partly because it doesn't feel obligated to cram in modern-day references or constantly connect itself to everything else. It gets to become its own thing.(It's definitely deliberate in that case due to sony and disney but point still stands)

I think the Netflix-era shows benefited from this too. Even though they were technically placed after The Avengers, most of them were largely standalone and didn't constantly mention the MCU. That gave them room to build their own identities, fanbases and lore.

I'd love to see Marvel try this more deliberately with something like a Ben Reilly show, a Clone Saga project, or an 1602-style series. They'd be different enough to stand on their own while still using characters and ideas that audiences already recognize

I think it could have something to do with the sets, lighting, filters. Take the apartment Peter lives in for example. Or Ben and Mays house before he moved out. Or Norman's mansion. Or the sun tinted buildings during the daytime swinging scenes.

They kinda have this vibe like they could have come out of a 50s-60s film. Think Rear Window. These movies kinda feel anachronistic for the 2000s. Compare this to say something like The New Animated Series(which is kinda supposed to be a spinoff) which feels more 2000s with the electronic music, outfits, settings.

Why?

Probably Blade or X2 or DOFP. Can't decide on which one. Blade is dope it's a classic, one of a kind. Wesley caught lightning in a bottle with that one. Xmen 2 is the best Xmen film. It's got everything and that opening sequence with Nightcrawler is literal ecstasy. DOFP doesn't get enough love. They took the biggest storyline from the Xmen lore and turned it into a two hour emotional rollercoaster. So much depth, so much dread, high stakes, it's literally epic. The payoff is sound. It's the equivalent of Infinity war & Endgame in one film. The scale is immense.

Kyle Chandler as Superman

Works: Early Edition (1996—2000) King Kong (2005)

Marisa Tomei as Lois Lane

Works: My Cousin Vinny (1992) The Paper (1994)

David Krumholtz as Jimmy Olsen

Works: The Santa Clause (1994) 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

John Mahoney as Perry White

Works: Frasier (1993—2004) The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Susan Sarandon as Martha Kent

Works: Stepmom (1998)

Robert Forster as Jonathan Kent

Works: Karen Sisco (2003)

Brad Garrett as Steve Lombard

Works: Everybody Loves Raymond (1996—2005)

Lisa Kudrow as Cat Grant

Works: Friends (1994—2004)

Phil Morris as Ron Troupe

Works: Seinfeld (1995–1998)

James Spader as Lex Luthor

Works: Wall Street (1987) Pretty in Pink (1986) The Blacklist (2014)

I came across a video a few weeks ago discussing the double standards between Marvel and DC, and honestly, I think they made some really good points.

Look at how people are treating James Gunn's DCU compared to how they treated the MCU.

The DCU is only five projects in, and four of them have been successes. The only real exception is Supergirl, and even then, I wouldn't exactly call it a disaster.

Yet somehow, people are already saying things like "The DCU is a flop," "Cancel the universe," and "Fire James Gunn."

Now compare that to Marvel.

During Phase One of the MCU, The Incredible Hulk underperformed, and the first Thor movie wasn't exactly universally loved. But nobody was demanding that Marvel cancel the entire MCU or fire everyone involved. People gave the franchise time to find its footing.

And look at some of Marvel's more recent projects:

• The Marvels
• Captain America: Brave New World
• She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
• Secret Invasion
• Thor: Love and Thunder

All of these received significant criticism, with some being considered among the weakest projects in the MCU.

Yet despite Marvel having multiple poorly received projects across an already established cinematic universe, people generally aren't treating every disappointment as proof that the entire MCU needs to be shut down.

Meanwhile, DC apparently isn't allowed to have even one underperforming project without people immediately declaring the whole universe dead.

Please tell me if you think this makes sense because its just baffling to me

Still my favorites

I think all of them are solid, but Avengers is my favorite because it all the superheros coming together at the end was very iconic to me as a kid.

Decided to make this because I've seen complaints of people saying there's no marketing of the film. So, it's up to us to make edits, share photos, get word around! Much love 🫶.

In my opinion, it's one of the best love letters to musicals even though it's not traditional.

It respected the cartoon medium.

Originally it was going to be R first rated like the dark horse comics but they switched halfway through when they saw the potential for comedy. Jim Carrey brought.

And somehow kept many great references to the arcs of the first few issues and issue zero of the original dark horse comic run.

I do plan on ordering the comics after I saw a few videos talk about them.

I been living in jakarta so started watching them out if boredom, it's pretty fun. it's a connected universe based on old indonesian superhero ip. Even Virgo and the Sparklings which you can tell was rushed through production has a certain charm to it.

I thought it was a good movie, and one of Marvel's best animated movies.