SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains minor spoilers for Superman. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
With the launch of the DC Universe in the last few months – first on the small screen with the animated Creature Commandos, and more recently on the big screen with Superman – it feels like the franchise is in the midst of a blue sky moment. There is no specific “house style” being developed by DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, and with the upcoming DC movie slate populated with diverse projects including Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow, Clayface and Peacemaker Season 2, it feels like any idea is potentially on the table for the canon.
So how about some kind of detective mystery for the Justice Gang? That was the idea that Superman star Nathan Fillion suggested during the recent press day for the new 2025 blockbuster, and it’s something I would love to see happen. CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb asked Fillion, Isabela Merced, Anthony Carrigan and Edi Gathegi what they would like to see next for their superhero team, and while Gathegi and Merced deferred to the mind of James Gunn, the actor who plays Guy Gardner a.k.a. Green Lantern offered a specific suggestion:
In this film, I think we see the Justice Gang dealing with some gigantic, physical threats. I would love to see them have to deal with some kind of mystery. Do some detective work. Hit the streets.
In Superman, the Justice Gang as a whole is called into action when dealing with two threats – and as noted by Nathan Fillion, they are threats that are pretty extreme. The first is a kaiju that is stomping around the streets of Metropolis causing havoc; and the second is the Boravian invasion of Jarhanpur, which requires the heroes to dismantle a nation’s military. Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific fight impressively, and their might is even greater now that Metamorpho is a part of the roster, but since we’ve already seen them perform in a big battle, it would be fantastic to see them operate in a more low key, investigative fashion.
Leaning into the team dynamic, Isabela Merced backed her co-stars idea and suggested taking influence from the excellence that Rian Johnson has been executing in the last few years:
I love a mystery. Like a Knives Out kind of ensemble mystery.
To add to the idea: I know that Nathan Fillion is excited by the prospect of the DC Universe introducing a Batman (so that the canon can include an adaptation of the moment in the comics where the Dark Knight knocks out Guy Gardner), he isn’t the investigator who I would want to see guiding the mystery of a Justice Gang-centric mystery. Instead of the World’s Greatest Detective, leaning into the collection of oddballs that is the roster, I would much prefer to see the first ever live-action version of the faceless sleuth known as The Question.
Time will tell if this is an idea that could ever take seed and grow into something real in the DC Universe – but for now, we can be excited for everything that is on the way in the coming years from Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, and enjoy both Creature Commandos and Superman, which are respectively available with a HBO Max subscription and playing in theaters everywhere.
