Doing justice to their heroes

Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment loosen up and lighten up, which is heartening.

In the great superhero movie arms race, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment are in the unenviable position of having to play catch-up to their distinguished competition, Marvel. It’s not their fault that Marvel recalibrated the way sequels work with their cinematic universe. And it’s not their fault that Marvel had a nine-movie head start in building it.

So how did WB/DC respond at Comic-Con 2016? By bringing out the whole bloody Justice League: Ben Affleck’s Batman, Henry Cavill’s Superman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Ezra Miller’s Flash and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg. Oh, and they delivered the Suicide Squad: Will Smith, Margot

Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Cara Delevingne, Jai Courtney, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara with the great and powerful Viola Davis.

Star wattage goes a long way, to be sure, and the lights were bright in Hall H. But what makes or breaks a presentation like this is the footage. And the footage — a first look at 2017’s “Justice League,” the first official trailer for 2017’s “Wonder Woman” and a special Comic-Con sizzle for August’s “Suicide Squad” — was heartening.

Heartening because the chief knock against Warners’ DC output has been that it is excessively grim and humorless. And watching the jokes parade across the “Justice League” footage — some from Affleck’s Bruce Wayne, no less — was welcome. And the sweep and majesty of the “Wonder Woman” trailer was stirring, not pummeling.

In Comic-Con’s Hall H, it was clear that the theme of 2017 at Warner Bros. — at least when it comes to DC — is “course correction.”

Apparently, DC heard the complaints about “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” evaluated its plans in the light of day (rather than the dead of Gotham night), saw what works for its chief rival and made a decision: Maybe we should treat these modern myths like actual myths. Perhaps their stories don’t need to be bound by reality.

Let legends be legendary.

Photographs by Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times CHEWY’S ANGELS — Ashley Bailey, left, Jacquie Ogle and Catherine Fisher — grace the Comic-Con scene.

ROBERT MEYERS, left, is attired as Marvel Comics character Whirlwind, and Brett Yen is Arnim Zola.

PORTRAYING Superman and Batman, John Whitt, left, and Greg Carlson dance the Batusi.

DONNA JACQUES pays tribute to Tippi Hedren’s character in Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

COSPLAYER Charles Thornton offers his spin on the fabled supervillain known as the Joker.