Well, no nipples on Nite Owl is something, at least.
I'm noting that the two characters that are most guilty of "that look" are Owl and Ozy. The first is kind of a technophile, and he still can't seem to hide his gut. The second, well, it's exactly the kind of thing image consultants would put together. Spot the fuck on.
Now, Rorschach is just some crazy guy with a mask and a hat, and remains such, thank fuck. The Comedian, well, I can't quite tell if he has padded-out abs or whatever, but mostly he looks more like a whacked out paramilitary jerk. Again, that's just about right.
Hard to tell with Spectre, though the setting has me worried. Goofball fighting stance and kick-your-ass face for, I presume, the burning building rescue? What the screaming fuck? Hoping it's just a misguided publicity shot.
None of this really matters, actually. What's most important is that it's not shoehorned into an action flick. Actual action scenes in that book? I can count them on one hand, and they were fast things, and usually pretty real and ugly. If they become drawn out affairs with implausible bullet-time physicality and a frantic symphonic score blowing my eardrums out? Yeah, it's fucked. Nite Owl in that contemporary-ish costume frumping and mid-life crisis-ing around in his basement with the hood off and stupid glasses? Cool.
The pessimist in me expects for him to be suiting up down there with Mars, The Bringer of War blaring in the background, but I still hope to fuck to see that kind of shit subverted. It's kind of the point.
Yeah, it could be done with bright colored spandex and tunics and whatnot, but that's way the hell more camp than superhero now. There's nothing to challenge there. I get flashbacks to that Justice League live action pilot. Contemporizing them a bit in the cases where it's appropriate to the character and then humanizing them. Dressing them like superheroes, but with no backflipping (well, maybe Ozzy, and only for TV) or getting knocked through walls or whateverthefuck-- just very physically vulnerable people who dress up crazy and can throw a punch, but bleed when socked in the mouth, get winded after a scuffle with a couple muggers... Dress them like what we expect superheroes to look like now, and then show how that shit would play out, not realistically, exactly, but something a damn sight uglier and probably depressing than superhero movie expectations. That could still be brilliant and unsettling. And it's damn good timing for it.
If they announce a videogame tie-in, we're all screwed.
... unless, against all fucking odds, it turns out to be a third-person story-driven old-school adventure game that jumps viewpoints constantly and has maybe a half dozen action segments that are each pretty much three-second-long QTEs that deliberately feel incredibly out of place... The frantic HOLY SHIT flashing A-Button icon comes up, you instinctively hit the thing, and congratulations, you just gunned down a pregnant woman. How do you feel?
Fuck. I just talked myself into wanting that.
