James Gunn's "Superman" does something that new franchises — especially ones involving cinematic universes — dream of: It trusts the audience to figure out who the characters are and how the world works rather than stop to explain things. The movie opens years into Superman's career, centuries into humanity's discovery of metahumans, and it continuously introduces new characters and concepts without hesitation. By the time the story begins, we understand there's a much larger universe at play here,
and we get a sense of history that we're not quite seeing but might see in the future.
Just like the opening text crawl teases the existence of superpowered beings on Earth, there is a blink-and-you-miss-it moment where we get a mural showing the history of heroes within the Hall of Justice. That mural, which contains illustrations of various heroes, has fans excited at the prospect of any of those characters potentially showing up in the future.
Though the shot is too brief and too unclear to be 100% sure who is in there, James Gunn has already confirmed one of the heroes. Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gunn seemingly confirmed Doctor Fate exists in the DC Universe. "I think Doctor Fate's in there," he said, referring to the mural.
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Doctor Fate Joins The DCU
Perhaps more interesting than Gunn confirming that Doctor Fate is in the Hall of Justice's historic mural is his confirmation of who isn't in it. When asked about whether Jay Garrick's Flash appears in the mural, which fans (and myself) speculated, Gunn denied it with a simple "nope." Gunn was also asked if Alan Scott's first Green Lantern is in the mural, and Gunn did not give a definitive answer. "I don't think so," Gunn said before looking off camera for confirmation, not saying anything more one way or the other.
The inclusion of Doctor Fate makes sense to tease the existence of the Justice Society (which made its big screen live-action debut in the ill-fated "Black Adam"), but to not include Jay Garrick or Alan Scott is interesting. There is a chance Gunn's DC Universe will not include them in the historic Justice Society roster in order not to draw confusion or comparison between the old and new generation of Flash and Lanterns, but that'd also be a wasted opportunity. One of the greatest strengths of the DC universe in the comics is the sense of legacy -- that the mantle of certain heroes has existed for a long time, and is passed down from one generation to another. Even when the heroes aren't exactly related, the inspiration and respect is there. It'd be a huge advantage over Marvel if DC were to lean on this (and it appears that HBO's upcoming Green Lantern TV series "Lanterns" is embracing this approach).
That being said, there's still a chance the two characters will make some appearance elsewhere down the line even if they are not on the mural. And if all else fails, that mural can just be changed in the next film.
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