I’m historically not a DC Comics defender, but the company could really use some support today following the very weak reception of an announcement that DC and Warner Bros. have some new film ideas up their sleeves. Sure, the news isn’t that exciting, but that may be The Hollywood Reporter’s fault for making it sound like DC is “storming the film world.” Compared to Marvel, DC’s plans still seem more like a light breeze, and therefore it’s understandable that the geeks and fanboys are disappointedly bitching today.

But as much as I’d love to see a Flash or Aquaman movie, neither of which I’m expecting anytime soon, I have to continue giving DC & WB credit for having given us the first and last great superhero movies. Superman is still the film to which comic book adaptations are compared, and it’s more than 30 years old. And now we also have The Dark Knight to judge every other movie against. Marvel has more films to show for themselves, but they actually have fewer great adaptations and therefore fewer films I’d call classics. Even Iron Man, in my opinion, fails to hold up as well as a number of DC films.

So let’s just be patient. It might be worth it. Or, feel free to keep up the whining and ridiculing in the comments section below. First, check out what the film blogs have to say after the jump:

• Rob Bricken at Topless Robot responds to DC’s insistence that they aren’t comparable to Marvel:
  

  Look, DC — I hate to break it to you, but you’re a comic book company, and a superhero one at that. You have to be compared to Marvel. You’re pretty much the only comparison to Marvel. And in terms of movies, Marvel’s kicking your ass…I’m not really sure what the point of this article was except to point out that DC still doesn’t have any clue about their movie plans. If so… well, I think we could’ve guessed that.

• Paul DeBenedetto at Wednesday’s Child also finds the announcement pointless:
  

  But in all seriousness, has there been a more boring studio announcement? DC and Warner Bros. take the world by storm with the Dark Knight, then follow that up by saying the Superman franchise is on hiatus. But not to worry! Here’s a bunch of crap no one wants to see. I mean be serious: do we need a Losers or Jonah Hex film? No, we don’t. Do you want to know why we’re getting these films? Because Warner Bros. is making the classic mistake of thinking that violence and “grit”, rather than good storytelling, are what make people want to read/watch something. Yeah, how did Watchmen work out for you guys?

• Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects argues this as a big step for the brand:
  

  Four films may seem like a drop in the bucket for some, and Neil would certainly consider all of these characters as B-level comic books, but this is more titles in production from DC than ever before. Clearly, they did not get the memo about the comic adaptation boom being over. Looks like they plan on personally extending alongside the likes of Iron Man 2 and whatever Superman title that we can add to this list later in the year.

• Kofi Outlaw at ScreenRant isn’t holding his breath for an Aquaman movie:
  

  Reportedly Aquaman is “in production” over at Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company. I only use the quotes because a quick look at the company’s extensive roster of films-in-the-works pretty much places Aquaman (for me at least) in the “believe-it-when-I-see-it” category.

• Mike Sampson at JoBlo.com doesn’t think the Aquaman movie will be an easy sell:
  

  It’ll be hard to get an AQUAMAN movie taken seriously though with “Entourage” and “why don’t you go talk to some fish?!” still fresh in everyone’s brain. DiCaprio has been trying hard to get a fanboy friendly project off the ground (see: AKIRA) but hasn’t had much luck.

• Lane Brown at Vulture addresses the continued absense of female superhero projects while getting excited about Aquaman:
  

  But even though they think they can turn a story about a guy who talks to fish into a blockbuster, the challenge of mounting a female-starring superhero movie has thus far proved too daunting. Reports The Hollywood Reporter: “Warners and DC still haven’t figured out how to translate Wonder Woman to the big screen.”

• Elisabeth Rappe at Cinematical foresees DC ultimately catching up with Marvel:
  

  Naturally, that’s all in the far and distant future, but with The Green Lantern, The Losers, and Red (a DC comic, but being set up at Summit with Bruce Willis) about to go before cameras, it looks like Marvel has some major competition at last. When the dust clears on this goldrush, it’s going to be very very interesting to see if there will be a winner in terms of quantity, quality, and “What the hell were they thinking?” output.

• The Playlist foresees DC producing more embarrassments:
  

  That’s all good and well but with only the Batman franchise truly successfully under way, shouldn’t they be focusing on a few adaptations at a time? Or does D.C. all of a sudden think they’re Marvel? Remember when you jump into too fast and quick you end up with a bunch of “Daredevil” and “Ghost Rider” projects.