The real Justice League is on The CW

How the "Arrowverse" breathed new life into the superhero ensemble

Comic-book crossover at the CW.
(Image credit: The CW)

For decades, Hollywood studios stockpiled excuses for why they couldn't make live-action movies or TV shows based on Marvel and DC Comics' most popular characters. Even when millions of readers each month were following the adventures of the X-Men, the Teen Titans, and the Fantastic Four, those fans still heard that the comic book audience was too "niche," and that even the most cutting-edge special effects weren't advanced enough to make superhero action on-screen look as dynamic as it did on the page. Also, weren't all those colorful costumes ... well, silly?

Anyone who's paid attention to the box office results over the past decade knows that Hollywood's hardly scared of superheroes any more. If anything, we're overstocked on caped crime-fighters and sneering super-villains. Between Marvel's Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy series, Fox's X-Men and Deadpool franchises, and DC/Warner Brothers' various iterations of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, scarcely a season passes without some kind of comics-derived property earning upwards of 10 figures worldwide.

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Noel Murray

Noel Murray is a freelance writer, living in Arkansas with his wife and two kids. He was one of the co-founders of the late, lamented movie/culture website The Dissolve, and his articles about film, TV, music, and comics currently appear regularly in The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.