JLA movie cast : Once you had black special

Yes, time for another installment of my Hollywood edition of casting a JLA movie although I have to admit that the first part of it falls into a period of the team´s history I´m not very familiar with : the Detroit League.

While their big finale was around the same time John Byrne was doing the great LEGENDS mini series I didn´t read any of those JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA issues. I have all the issues of LEGENDS but for the most part those were already back issues when I started to hunt them down. Now the purpose of that series was to lead into the new status quo of the Post Crisis DC universe as well as make readers curious for the new series of SUPERMAN, BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN, GREEN LANTERN, THE FLASH, BLUE BEETLE, DOCTOR FATE and of course the new JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Which at that time was already published by the Norbert Hethke Verlag in Germany - in an album sized format no less - so even IF I had found some issues of the previous series they would have held no interest for me.

I now know a bit more about the Detroit League but back when I read the first issue of GERECHTIGKEITSLIGA ( which contained the first two issues of the Giffen League ) I had no idea what this sequence was all about.

The only knowledge I have of the Detroit League is from appearances in JLA CLASSIFIED / JSA CLASSIFIED and other later comics where they are mentioned. So in preparation for the JLA casting posts and an upcoming DEATH IN COMICS : THE DEATH OF MISTER MIRACLE post I went through the covers and the whole Detroit period is one big DEATH IN COMICS read because it looks like they are put through the wringer every other issue.

The Detroit League even had a run in with Despero which probably has something to do with why he has such a hate on for Gypsy when he returns to earth in the issues that lead into the Death of Mr. Miracle issue. Sadly there are no trades or reprints available that cover that time period and I also couldn´t find any of these issues at my trusty comic shop or any of the online comic shops I frequent as I really would like to read this in preparation for upcoming posts - but also out of curiosity.

What I want to say with that long winded explanation is that while I have added Gypsy and Vixen to my casting list I really don´t know that much about their Pre Crisis history with the Justice League. And with that said, let´s head into the next part from my Hollywood casting which is - as always - a bit picture heavy but that´s what these posts are all about : 

Beyonce as Vixen ( Mari McCabe )

This is probably no surprise for those readers who read my last celebrity birthday post about Beyonce where I wrote at length about this casting decision, Ed Benes´ run on JLA and his knack for drawing female forms.

Since Ed Benes obviously based Vixen on Halle Berry you might think it obvious that I´d do the same. But they do that with a lot of female black characters in comics and I don´t want to cast Halle in 5 different roles.

And I don´t use the term " black " to provoke. It´s just that " afro - american " sounds more like some pc nonsense to make it sound not as offensive while people have the same stereotypes in mind. And technical speaking Mari would be an " afro - african " since she was born in Afrika where there are also white people. And she doesn´t even wear an afro.

So, for playing the afro - african - american Justice Leaguer who is also a model I went with somebody who is hot, has starred in a few movies and is no stranger to the world of fashion. She even designs her own clothes.

So the bootylicious Beyonce got the role of Vixen in my fantasy casting for a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie, and boy she does bring out the animal in men.

By the way, somebody ought to tell the guys at DC that Vixen is not really a good name for a woman in Germany as it sounds like wichsen, the german word for spanking the monkey....to keep the animal terminology.

Halle Berry as Green Lantern ( Soranik Natu )

I haven´t been the first one to cast Helle Berry as the exotic Lantern who has artists draw her cleavage ( and her breasts ) bigger and bigger.

Voted the sexiest woman on the planet I just had to add Halle and since there just has to be a Green Lantern on the team I´m killing two breasts with one stone. Although I have to put in her contract that the cleavage has to be - at the very least - open to 2 inches below her belly button.

That way we could finally forget the CATWOMAN fiasko. Who would have thought that a movie with Halle in such a nympho sex outfit could tank ?

The whole direction should have been to a way older clientele like this.

I mean the movie was waaay too tame for a Catwoman movie. The stripper outfit sure helped a bit - less clothing on Halle Berry is always a good thing - but the whole tone was wrong. Even the animated version of Catwoman is more of a horny slut than Halle Berry was in the movie.

Halle Berry has one of the best butts in Hollywood without any doubt.

But the producers of the CATWOMAN movie fumbled the ball on this one.



Now I could go on a tangent about the history of Selina Kyle but since I never watched much of the 60s BATMAN tv show I´d have to skip that part. And I think this is an important part of the adaptions of Catwoman into movies and tv because you got three iconic versions right there.

But luckily GOODSTUFFs CYBERWORLD already covered all that - and much more - in the 166th issue of the blogging magazine titled Everything you wanted to know about Catwoman but were afraid to ask Tim Burton .

Coming back to the subject of Halle Berry´s CATWOMAN movie there was this news report - that I consider a fake - that on the set Halle Berry´s Catwoman costume ripped various times due to the physicality of her role, doing backflips and whatnot and her boobs popped out one time.

Now why wasn´t this in the DVD extras ? I´m always highly suspicious if something like this is in the news but there is no boob footage. Because they sure as heck have footage of all the things nobody wants to see. 

I think what CATWOMAN needed was more nude Halle, not necessarily to the extent of MONSTERS BALL but at least as much as in SWORDFISH.

Going topless didn´t ruin her career even if it wasn´t her best movie.

So in my JLA movie Halle Berry would definitely have to take it all off, having a hot nude scene with Guy Gardner or another Green Lantern Corps member ( no pun intended ) or at least a shower scene with Arisia. Naturally as a director who takes his job seriously I insist on rehearsing all explicit scenes with Halle Berry just to assure the integrity of the movie.

Ah, the sacrifices we make for art. It´s hardcore . . . I mean a hard job.

Or there might be a special interrogation scene involving the Yellow Lanterns from the Sinestro Corps who do a full cavity search on Soranik. Which they already hinted at in the SINIESTRO comic with this nice scene.

Halle doesn´t have such a big chest size like when she was at the THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE premiere where her blue dress made the news.

But she still looks totally awesome for a woman who has had two kids.

With some of the women in my cast I would need to pick them from a certain time in their career but with Halle that doesn´t matter and you would most definitely see her in my Justice League movie in some role.

We start Today´s video section with a Halle Berry in a spectacular dress at the 2010 Golden Globes just to show you what a goldmine the producers of CATWOMAN had at their hands. I mean, what could possibly go wrong ?



Well, as history has showed us : plenty. And if you still haven´t seen the movie but are still curious and don´t want to waste 104 minutes of yout life Nostalgia Critic has done an indepth analysis of that train wreck.



As an example how Catwoman DONE RIGHT looks like here´s the DC SHOWCASE video and I think it speaks for itself that this version delivered on all the bases the big budget Hollywood movie missed.



But Halle Berry´s movie was not the only one with a horrible portrayal of Selina Kyle and since I seize every opportunity to post a Yaya Han video here she is in a Catwoman costume. That´s how you work it, Anne, see ?



Terry Hopper has been posting some incredible comic documentary videos on COMICBITS ONLINE blog since a lot of his posts lately have been about collecting comics here´s one from 1989 with Steve " the Dude " Rude.



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