With the Man of Steel sequel introducing Warner Bros.' newest version of Batman (and possibly even Wonder Woman), it looks like we're finally on our way to seeing an actual Justice League of America film on the big screen. It's been a long time coming, and compared to Marvel's robust lineup of superhero movies, Warners still has a long way to go.

The Sinestro Corps War

Loading

Batman: The Long Halloween

The Death of Superman

Loading

Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman

JLA: Rock of Ages

New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract

Kingdom Come

Throne of Atlantis

Rotworld or Day of Vengeance

As the DC Universe gains a foothold in Hollywood, we're hoping to see Warners buck past trends and start drawing more inspiration from the comics themselves. One of the many reasons for Marvel's success has been their willingness to pull familiar elements from the source material and directly involve the comic creators. With that in mind, we've assembled a list of iconic DC storylines we think would be ripe for the Hollywood treatment. This list covers a wide range of DC heroes, not just Batman and Superman. It's time for DC's heroes to compete on an even playing field with their Marvel counterparts. The first Green Lantern movie did a lot of things wrong, but one of the few elements it got right was Mark Strong's Sinestro. Had it focused more on the friendship-turned-bitter-rivalry between Hal Jordan and Sinestro, it would have been a much better film. All signs point to the franchise being rebooted in some fashion or another. But next time we hope they skip the familiar origin story and focus more firmly on Sinestro, a character who, thanks to writers like Geoff Johns, is more interesting and complex than Hal ever was.The Sinestro Corps War is Johns' masterstroke of his long Green Lantern run. In this story, Sinestro formed an entire army to oppose the Green Lanterns. Each of his 7200 soldiers wielded a yellow ring powered by fear. Bolstering the ranks was a who's who of major DC villains, from Parallax to Cyborg Superman to the Anti-Monitor. the result was an epic clash between will and fear that sparked an entire War of Light across the DCU. As far as special effects bonanzas go, you can't get much more bombastic than this.The post-credits sequence in Green Lantern showed Sinestro acquiring his yellow ring, fueling hope that a Sinestro Corps War adaptation would eventually come to pass. It's just not fair for Warners to tease Lantern fans and not follow through. Along with Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween is looked to as one of the most seminal Batman graphic novels of all time. And since we saw shades of Miller's work throughout Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, the time has come to draw directly more from Long Halloween and its sequel, Dark Victory, when it comes to expanding the Batman movie universe.Much of the appeal with Long Halloween is in how it showcases all the Batman villains. The core of the story involves Batman's battle against the Falcone crime family, the fall of Harvey Dent, and a murder mystery that unfolds across an entire year, with a new victim being claimed on each new holiday. This long-form approach allows for everyone from Joker to Poison Ivy to Calendar Man to Solomon Grundy to show up.The Dark Knight movies were great, but the more realistic approach to Gotham prevented many iconic Bat-villains from being candidates for inclusion. We're assuming that won't be an issue with Ben Affleck's Batman if he's already going to be beating up on Superman. A Long Halloween adaptation would allow WB to highlight many of these villains that either haven't appeared on the big screen at all or last appeared in the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher era. And who doesn't love a good murder mystery? In the late '90s, we very nearly got a Superman movie based on the classic "Death of Superman" storyline that saw Supes perish in a battle with the monstrous Doomsday only to return with a righteous mullet. Kevin Smith was one of several writers to work on the script, and Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage were on board to direct and star, respectively. That project eventually fell through, and some of the proof of concept photos suggest that this might have been for the best.Even so, there's no reason a Death of Superman adaptation couldn't work well. The source material would need to be heavily condensed to convert dozens of comics into one movie, but the animated Superman: Doomsday movie managed to squeeze the story into a paltry 70 minutes. Two or three hours is plenty of room to work with. Ideally, the movie would follow the example of the failed '90s version by positioning Brainiac as the mastermind who pits Doomsday against Superman. We've seen too many Superman movies that only revolve around Lex Luthor or General Zod.But we'd also like to see the movie draw inspiration from a more recent story about Superman confronting the prospect of death. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman is widely regarded as the best Superman comic of all time. The story involves Superman confronting his impending death and struggling over the legacy he'll leave the world. Our main hope is for a film that can really examine what Superman means to the DC Universe and why he's the greatest hero in a world where he now co-exists with Batman and the rest of the Justice League. Many have pointed out the absurdity in the fact that Marvel will have released a movie starring a giant space tree and a talking, gun-toting raccoon before Warners can put together a movie starring the third member of DC's superhero trinity. And while that reflects pretty badly on Warners, it should be noted that Wonder Woman has always been a notoriously difficult character to crack. With all the Greek mythology elements, the bondage subtext, and the general idea of a star-spangled heroine who wields a magical lasso and occasionally flies an invisible jet, it can be tough to make modern audiences connect with the character.That's why Brian Azzarello's current Wonder Woman comic has been such a breath of fresh air. He's successfully streamlined the character and her universe. His Wonder Woman shows all the necessary characteristics. She's tough, but identifiable. She fights out of love for her fellow man (and Amazon) and a deep sense of honor. She has an interesting supporting cast. Even the Greek gods have received unique transformations in look and personality to better fit the 21st Century.Obviously, Azzarello's saga is far from done, but even the two years that have unfolded so far would make for a terrific movie. Diana's quest has pitted her against most of the gods, shed new light on her relationship with her father, Zeus, and uncle, Ares, and given her a dramatic new role within the DCU. This is where Warners needs to look as they struggle to finally get Wonder Woman into movie theaters and back in the public consciousness again. You don't get much more evil in the DC Universe than Darkseid. We figure it's only a matter of time before one of Warners' films pits either Superman or the entire Justice League against the New God tyrant and master of Apokolips. There may be no better source of inspiration than Grant Morrison's Rock of Ages storyline from his Justice League of America series.Rock of Ages is a two-pronged story, with the first portion dealing with the latest showdown between the JLA and Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang. That alone would make for a great movie. But that battle only leaves Earth vulnerable to an attack by Darkseid, who finally learns the elusive Anti-Life Equation and uses it to enslave Earth. The result was an still is one of the most epic Justice League stories ever.Rock of Ages is, in some ways, a practice run for what Morrison did later with Final Crisis. But this story is more straightforward and digestible, and ultimately better suited for a film adaptation. We just hope the filmmakers leave Electric Blue Superman out of the equation. Whether DC covers the entire story in one go or splits it across multiple films, Rock of Ages could easily trounce The Avengers in scope and spectacle. The fact that DC is moving past Nolan's Batman trilogy means that more villains are now on the table, but also that teen sidekicks are a proposition again. We're already seeing the Arrow TV series do great work with characters like Roy Harper. It's only a matter of time before the movie universe becomes developed enough that the Justice League will have a full lineup of sidekicks. And should the Teen Titans reach the point where they earn their own movie, there's no better choice of source material than Marv Wolfman and George Perez's seminal New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.The Judas Contract is proof positive that Deathstroke is the greatest Titans villain of them all. In this story, the Titans are betrayed by Terra when they discover she was sent as a spy by Deathstroke to destroy the team from within. Deathstroke himself has been one of the breakout characters on Arrow. Even if Warners' movies aren't tied to the Arrow universe, we'd still like to see Slade take center stage as a villain and capitalize on his growing popularity from Arrow and Arkham Origins. The Judas Contract is his moment to shine. DC has a number of comics that examine how the future of their superhero universe might turn out. Apart from The Dark Knight Returns, the most famous and influential of these is easily Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come. Kingdom Come is set several decades in the future, when a new generation of heroes with fantastical powers and loose morals have replaced the likes of Superman and Batman. An aging Superman re-emerges to lead the heroes back to greatness, but that merely sparks a civil war that spirals into an almost biblical showdown.It's easy to imagine Kingdom Come translating into film, as Ross' realistic paintings are cinematic enough as it is. But a Kingdom Come movie is also an intriguing proposition because it can showcase the full scope of the DCU in a way few adaptations could. This isn't just a tale about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It includes the Spectre, Shazam, the New Gods, and countless new characters descended from familiar heroes. And it's all framed from the perspective of one ordinary man trying to prevent the apocalypse. It wouldn't need any methodical build-up because it's an out-of-continuity story, and it would expose moviegoers to a rich tapestry of characters that has only begun to be explored in film. At this point, Marvel and DC may be locked in a battle to see which company can bring their underwater superhero monarch to theaters first. Marvel is currently in a better position with Namor, but Aquaman still has more mainstream cache. Granted, most of that cache involves people making jokes about how lame Aquaman is, but there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?The primary goal with an Aquaman film is to make moviegoers realize that, not only is Aquaman totally not lame, but he's actually pretty bad-ass under a capable writer. Here again we turn to a recent storyline from DC's New 52 comics - Throne of Atlantis. The story unfolded early this year as a crossover between the Justice League and Aquaman comics, with Atlantis staging a full-scale invasion of the surface world and Aquaman torn between his loyalties to the JLA and his heritage as an Atlantean.The story could easily be rejiggered to serve as a debut movie for Aquaman, including flashbacks to Aquaman's origin and early years amid all the wide-scale battling. And just as the comic did, a Throne of Atlantis movie could play into DC's larger plans as far as fostering mistrust of Earth's heroes and paving the way for Amanda Waller and A.R.G.U.S. to swoop in and become the S.H.I.E.L.D. of the DC movie universe. Guillermo Del Toro is currently attached to a film called Dark Universe, which will feature a number of DC's supernatural heroes. And that's great, but we've noticed that Del Toro's name gets attached to a lot of films that never see the light of day. It's tough to be too optimistic about Dark Universe at this point.But even if that movie never gets off the ground, we do think an ensemble film starring many supernatural characters is the way to go. This is a corner of the DCU that many casual fans aren't too well acquainted with. Rather than focusing on individual movies for characters lime Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Deadman, etc., we'd rather see one film that dives headlong into the magical realm.Two comics spring to mind as being ideal candidates for adaptation - Rotworld and Day of Vengeance. Rotworld is a recent storyline that explored the interplay among The Red (the force that binds all animal life), The Green (the force that binds all plant life), and The Rot (the force of death and decay). When longtime Swamp Thing villain Anton Arcane perverts the Rot and nearly consumes the planet, Swamp Thing, Animal Man , and a small band of surviving heroes band together to restore balance to the world. Day of Vengeance was a story where the Spectre (a supernatural being who exacts vengeance on criminals) ran wild and began targeting all sources of magic in the world. Only an eclectic team that included Blue Devil, Detective Chimp, and Ragman stood in his way.Either story fulfills the goals of showcasing the full scope of DC's supernatural catalog and providing an epic conflict worthy of the best superhero movies.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN