Although Wonder Woman came close with Ares, the DCEU is yet to find its perfect villain.
The same thing could, to some degree, be said of the MCU, but it's a far more pressing concern for Warner Bros., who've managed to traumatise audiences with Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor and a hideous looking version of Doomsday in the space of one film. Jared Leto's Joker kind of goes without saying as well, but - in any case - the DCEU is yet to find a truly intimidating antagonist; one that's both believable and charismatic.
While Nightwing himself is short on villains, he has had a few notable rivals over the years. Fans of Teen Titans will know all too well that he's kept a fierce rivalry with Slade Wilson, duked it out with Blockbuster and, in no small way, taken on a toxic relationship with Tarantula.
The options are there for the film to follow through with a truly compelling and unique adversary. It's up to McKay and co. to grasp them.
How do you feel about a solo Nightwing feature? Excited? Nervous? Let us know in the comments below!
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
