The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann has earned all kinds of praise for his work on the video game franchise and HBO’s new hit series, and he’d absolutely kill it in the DC Universe. Druckmann is the writer and creative director of The Last of Us video game released in 2013 and lends his insight to the TV show.
The producers of The Last of Us, Druckmann and Craig Mazin, have adapted the story beautifully and it’s being overwhelmingly well-received by critics and fans alike. The series takes a respectable amount from its source material, and the places where it diverges are thoughtful and add so much more to the story. The story has even taken inspiration from interesting places, including the famed DC Comic limited series Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Mazin confirmed in The Last of Us Podcast that episode five of the show, “Endure and Survive,” was partly inspired by Watchmen. There’s a scene where Ellie and Sam find the comic book Savage Starlight in a maintenance settlement beneath Kansas City and they bond over it. The idea for this came from the Watchmen‘s comic within a comic, Tales of the Black Freighter.
The quality of writing in The Last of Us is what the DC Universe needs, as it demonstrates how meticulousness creates impressive adapted material. Druckmann’s already proven he’s more than capable of pulling this off; these are the DC projects he should work on.
Blackest Night
DC’s intergalactic zombie event Blackest Night has to be made into a live-action movie and signing on Druckmann is the way to do it. The death-obsessed supervillain Black Hand summons Nekron, the cosmic death entity, resurrects hordes of dead DC characters, and converts other living heroes into Black Lanterns. It’s the superheroes’ worst nightmare having to confront their loved ones who’ve come back in these ghastly forms, and Druckmann would strike that balance between fear and emotion into our hearts. There’s so much history that needs to be captured for Blackest Night to work and the triumphant fight for humanity can’t be lost amidst all of the terror.
Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth
Kamandi is the last human survivor on a post-apocalyptic Earth with countless dangers, so obviously, this choice makes a lot of sense. He was created by Jack Kirby in 1972 and he’s from a parallel Earth filled with anthropomorphic animals that can communicate with him. Aliens came to this world and they created the Global Peace Agency to avoid a looming Great Disaster, but they weren’t able to succeed. All sorts of natural disasters happened and nuclear war ensued.
The scientist Michael Grant created the chemical Cortexin, which inadvertently affected laboratory test animals due to ambient radiation. Over time, the animals mutated and evolved to take on human characteristics. Kamandi was the grandson of Buddy Blank, a stockroom clerk who was turned into the one-man army corps (O.M.A.C.) for the Global Peace Agency and survived in the post-apocalypse, and its tribes of animals. His grandson was named Kamandi and he taught him everything he could about the old world until the time came when it was just Kamandi as the last boy on Earth.
DCeased
DC’s popular alternate universe zombie event would be a dark treat to witness in live-action. In this miniseries by Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine, Cyborg becomes a carrier for the Anti-Life Equation virus that’s turning everyone it infects into zombies. This is more of a straight-up zombie story with more of the trappings expected in the zombie, but it’s entertaining the whole way through. A lot of the time, stories like this can feel contrived, but DCeased manages to tell a story that still takes the characterization of these characters seriously, which makes their zombification more heartwrenching. What’s great about this is other DCeased series like DCeased: Dead Planet and DCeased: War of the Undead Gods.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
Don’t be fooled by her looks, Kara Zor-El is no Barbie. She’s one of the toughest members of the Super-family and has a much harder time holding back her anger than her cousin Superman. In Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, Supergirl is on a quest to seek justice for an alien girl named Ruthye whose father was killed by Krem of the Yellow Hills. The story takes them on an intergalactic adventure where they see many worlds, and although this brand of sci-fi is aesthetically different than zombie-fare, it still gets into some juicy themes that Druckmann could expertly handle. Similar to Joel, Supergirl has lost nearly everything. She survived on a chunk of Krypton, Argo City, after it was destroyed and had to watch her loved ones die. She still struggles with how best to carry on afterward, and how that’s represented onscreen would be an instrumental piece in telling this story.
Multiversity: Pax Americana
It would be easy to enlist Druckmann to write a Watchmen project, but that well has been dried up for a while now. Instead, Multiversity: Pax Americana by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely is a story that takes place on Earth-4 and would be the perfect story to adapt. It borrows a lot from Watchmen and deconstructs the deconstruction by using analogs of the Minute Men to make a commentary on politics. There’s The Question as the Comedian, Blue Beetle as Nite-Owl, Nightshade as Silk Spectre, Peacemaker as the Comedian, and Captain Atom as Dr. Manhatan, and in spite of the inspiration, the story never feels hollow.
It opens with the assassination of the U.S. president and then jumps around in time to unravel how and why the events in the story take place. Captain Atom is experimented upon who can see the entirety of existence from a higher perspective, and it invites the reader to look at the concept of a comic book differently as well. It’s a mind-bending yet heartbreaking ode to comic books that represents astrophysical phenomena as something that should be investigated.
Justice League Dark
Justice League Dark is long overdue for a story, and Druckmann would knock this out of the park. For too long, DC’s magical community has been underserved in live-action. This super-team consists of Zatanna, John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Detective Chimp, Man-Bat, and Wonder Woman even joins the squad. The magical world operates much differently than the main world. The Justice League can only handle so much, but when it comes to cases of great supernatural importance, it’s up to the Justice League Dark to handle business. Because it exists in its own space, it would take a writer of Druckmann’s caliber to fully represent it in a way that doesn’t feel like a carbon copy of what’s been seen before. The Last of Us is able to feel fresh in a genre that’s been done so much that’s decaying, and that level of originality should be brought to this project.
Demon Knights
Demon Knights by Paul Cornell and Diogenes Neves is a comic book that needs way more love than it gets. The series takes place in the Dark Ages where a horde of barbarians are committed to reigning over humanity. Madame Xanadu, the mystic fortune teller, and Jason Blood, the man who transforms into the firebreathing monster Etrigan, stand against this destructive force. Merlin gave Jason the ability to become the demon after having a vision and knowing that he would be needed. Jason and Xanadu come across other notable legendary players, the immortal Vandal Savage and the brave Shining Knight, The Horsewoman, Al Jabr, and Exoristos, and together they are the Demon Knights who fight back against the Questing Queen and Mordru. This would feel like a fresh tale that would involve engaging mythology, and it would fit the theme of DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, exquisitely.
Azrael
Azrael is yet another character that’s been ignored for too long. Jean-Paul Valley II takes on the Azrael mantel his father left without knowing what he was really getting himself into. He’s brought into a strange world by a dwarfling named Nomoz and gets initiated into the ancient Order of St. Dumas. A supposedly holy sect that uses a process called “The System” to initiate its chosen warrior who’s meant to exact swift vengeance upon those he deems evil. Jean-Paul is given the Suit of Sorrows to complete this quest and faces battles of the mind and the soul and nearly loses himself in the process.
Azrael joins the Bat-family, but when his own brand of justice goes against Batman’s order, he becomes public enemy number one. It’s a brutal story and a major part of Batman’s history where he has to consider his own actions and understand what’s best for the city. Perhaps Azrael’s version of ending the bad guys indefinitely is the right way, though it could inevitably lead to more violence and distrust. The character study and the religious commentary in this project would make for a thrilling experience that would separate it from some safer options. The Last of Us proves that Druckmann isn’t afraid of taking on heavier subject matter.