by Martin McGrath

It seems odd that DC Comics, part of the Warner Bros entertainment conglomerate since 1969 and, as such, with a direct line to the heart of one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world has taken so long to firmly establish its cast of household name comic books into cross platform stars. True DC were first out of the blocks with big screen adaptations of Superman (1978) and Batman (1989) that turned heads and made money but the near identical path taken by the pair of franchises – opening with films of genuine quality made by directors of standing (Donner and Burton, respectively) before falling away with sequels that increasingly played things for laughs to falling critical and commercial returns suggest that Warner Bros never really knew what to do with their superheroes.