Originally, the Seven Soldiers were a Golden Age super-team who took on the Axis in World War II. Then, in 2005, Grant Morrison and a roster of artists revamped the team into something entirely different and absolutely wonderful. Seven Soldiers of Victory chronicles seven reluctant, second-string heroes' strange journey to coming together as a team to fight the fiendish Sheeda, an Earth-inhabiting race of the far future. What ultimately makes the story tremendously unique is its format: The series consists of two book-end issues, and between them, seven four-issue, character-specific arcs. Though every hero fights the Sheeda, they do so separately — even in the climactic final battle, they can't really comprehend the larger picture of what they are doing. In the end, the Seven Soldiers are a team that isn't, in fact, much of a team at all.
This is a balancing act of a book, and one that would admittedly challenge any filmmaker, no matter how confident. But the comic pulled it off, proving how great the reward is for taking on the premise's risk — and a movie could succeed in much the same way. It helps that the Seven Soldiers include some of DC's most colorful characters, like Zatanna and Mister Miracle. They're all a little weird, rooted in their own particular corners of the DC universe, swept up in dramas utterly opaque to everyone else in the story. Combing their unique paths into one complete, satisfying big-screen arc would definitely be a challenge, but one that would still be well worth undertaking.
