It has recently occurred to me that the DC cinematic universe is actually Dragon Ball Z. Try to follow me here, first of all, we all know that once it becomes Z, Dragon Ball rips off Superman with Goku also being the last of an alien race that died when his home planet exploded. Earlier on, Toriyama had already done a mroe obvious parody of Superman in Dr. Slump, so we know he was aware, we can't call it a coincidence, Goku is Superman, Superman is Goku. From here, let's look at the DC cinematic universe.
Man of Steel - after years of individually licensed movies, DC finally tries to tell a continuous narrative starting with Superman vs General Zod. General Zod is a villain from Superman's homeworld, and the big fight scene between them is quite obviously replaying Goku vs Vegeta. They had hundreds of villains and plots to work with, but of all options, they went with the one that paralleled the most epic showdown in Dragon Ball Z. This in itself is nothing, but where do they go from here?
Batman vs Superman - This was the movie nobody, not even the fans, saw coming. But in retrospect it becomes a bit more clear that Superman and Batman establishing a rivlary and then cooperating against a common enemy and Superman dying to sacrifice himself to defeat that enemy is a parallel of Goku teaming up with Piccolo against Radditz, and the nature of the final villain as an amalgam monster that was designed to kill Superman parallels Cell. But this is putting the narrative a little out of order, fortunately it gets a bit more on track in the next stage.
Justice League - Superman is brought back to life to stop an even greater enemy, an interplanetary destroyer of worlds named Steppenwolf. The gathering of heroes to fight Steppenwolf seems similar to Goku and friends fighting Frieza, including when the villain threatens to actually rip the planet apart at it's seams like Frieza did to Namek. The only thing missing here is it taking place on another planet.
The next step it would seem to be that Justice League 2 would bring in that guy from the fifth dimension I won't even try to spell. But anyway, my point is that if you want to see a good AMericna live action Dragon Ball movie and you weren't satisfied with Dragonball Evolution, try the DC cinematic universe. In the meantime, Megalobox premieres on Toonami tonight and I posted this because I don't know nearly enough about Megalobox to comment in it before I see it, but I'll get back with review/commentary next week.
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