I've re-watched Zack Snyder's Justice League the last few nights, the director's incredible four hour cut.
I watch tons of Marvel Super Hero films - there's so many - but there's something more compelling about DC's movies.
DC's characters appear crestfallen, hurt and in hiding. Batman, The Flash, Aquaman, Wonder Woman Cyborg, even a black-caped Superman; they're all damaged individuals, often bearing overwhelming guilt for not helping their dead, disappointed or imprisoned parents enough in their dark pasts.
This seam of melancholy is different to Marvel's sunnier noisy bromances and yes, I would say that the DC movie-verse is tinged with sadness, the death of Superman being the essential tragedy at its broken heart. It's not news, it's just taken me awhile to figure it out.
The whole world grieves when Superman passes. Things are greyer, it rains more, the world is suffering the death of a deity ( sadly I'm pretty certain there's no-one like Superman in the real world for whom the entire planet would grieve in this way. Or?)
Snyder's skill makes Clark's Mother's and Lois Lane's own private and dreadful mourning palpable to us all too. Lois's grief and Batman's guilt appear to be the film's driving force.
In Marvel it's the blip that ails the population's soul. Rather than a demi-god like Superman - Marvel doesn't have anyone supremely good like him really, other than Captain America - it's the 'blip', a universal event that instantly causes the loss of half the world's (and universe's) denizens - which brings about global confusion, apathy and mass hopelessness.
The music score of Snyder's Justice League is equally morose and fits the dark times perfectly, none moreso than in the almost-final bonus scene, Batman's apocalyptic future knightmare.
*Spoiler Alert!*
This dream offers no real hope either. The world is ravaged, reduced to a desert-like husk. Darkseid has won and even worse, a dark Superman is his ally, enraged with hatred by the death of his beloved Lois at Batman's hand.
The League looks beaten: Batman is weary, Aquaman is dead, the Flash looks nervous and when the cookie ultimately crumbles perhaps it is indeed only the Joker's insane laughter that makes any sense at all.
See what I mean! DC is compelling!
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I picked up this shift-weary Polistil Dodge ambulance last week. I tend not to buy die-casts now as I went overboard the last few years -I've hundreds! - but this still had its plastic stretcher and for a squid I had a punt.
Missing a red siren, two small lamps, side lights and some orange trim, along with a few scratches, I set to and had a go at fixing it up.
With several bits from the bits box and a roll of site tape it came together quite well, ready for another big emergency in the city.
See what you think.
Collecting sometimes means being in it for the long haul.
It's like that for me with big box VHS.
Videos from the 1980's are few and far between now unless you want to pay a small fortune on auction sites.
Many are in private hands and it's rare for any big boxes to surface at car boots, so finding one at this morning's stroll round Thorpe Arch was very unusual.
It was in a box of normal sized 1990's VHS and as is their nature, sticking out because they're bigger!
This was it, from 1985:
