Random bits of Superheroes being Awesome

Why the Avengers movie might tank

Yes yes, I know - The teaser trailer was awesome and Joss Whedon and How Dare I and blah de blah de blah.

Yesterday's post on Green Lantern should have been a clue here as to what the problem might be.

The problem: The Audience, whom are not comic people, have to A) remember, and B) Give a damn about what happened in the following movies at minimum:

2008's Iron Man
2011's Thor
2011's Captain America: the First Avenger

Other movies that they might want to care about include:
2008's Incredible Hulk
2010's Iron Man 2

Now, while this is not necessarily a big deal, there's no proof that it won't be a small one either. Consider, the only modern example of this kind of crossover movie is the Aliens vs. Predator 'franchise'.

Scared yet?

This is also why I have serious concerns over the presence of Joss Whedon; because outside of Kevin Smith, there's no one in Hollywood I've found who caters more to the extremes of the fanbases while ignoring the larger audience than Whedon. Hopefully, he'll prove me wrong, and hopefully audiences will be able to follow along a clearly defined story.

Hopefully.

If the people making the film have taken this into account.

For my American friends

Happy Fourth of July

Quick Hits

As you've noticed already, 2011 isn't going to be the daily post-a-rama that 2010 was for various reasons - mostly due to an uptick in activity in my real life. However, the other reason? Comic "industry" news is pretty damn boring when you get right down to it. Let me go through the big news of the last little while.

-One of the Fantastic Four Dies! Uhm,....yeah, you do realize you brought back BUCKY, right? And Captain America, and Jean Grey's about due to pop out of the grave any day now, so excuse me if I don't take this all that seriously. How about, and this is a crazy idea, instead of obsessing on killing and murder and death (Heroes dying! Kids dying! Villains Slaughtering whole races and countries and creeds!) they try giving characters interesting lives? I know that would be a challenge, and challenge isn't really something that Big Two comics goes for much, but it's just a thought.

-WIZARD will stop publishing! Well, that's not a surprise, ever since any 12 year old figured they could find better toilet based humor using a Google search, Wizard has been redundant.
-Marvel Editorial Shake-ups! You know what? I'll care when I see any indication that there's a change of philosophy or how it treats creators rights, or shows a different and evolving perspective of comics as medium in the 21st century. Otherwise, it's just deck chairs on the Titanic.

-A final note - on Marvel Comic movies, there are only two possibilities as far as I'm concerned; either they will be good entertainment, which is more than 99% of their current comics output, in which case I'll spend money on it, while wondering why there isn't similar quality in the comics, or they won't do as well, which will lead to more focus on the comics side of the business, which will force the quality of them to rise by adapting grown up policies. It's a no-lose scenario, as I see it. Thus, I'm not too concerned about things like Jon Favreau or the new Spider-Man Costume. If they want to lose money and audience - well, they've had a lot of experience with that the way their comics have been selling the last 15 years, so who am I to stop them from doing what they do best?

Quick Hits

-I cannot for the life of me imagine anything more pointless or unneccessary than another dystopic X-men alternate timeline.

-Except for maybe another Wolverine title.

-Or another Deadpool title.

-Although, come to think of it, the current status quo for the X-franchise is a not-bad metaphor for the mentality of the big two comics - a group of people who have chosen to isolate themselves from the larger world and no longer even try to interact with it on equal terms. They dream of glory days that they helped to end with short-sightedness and petty grudges.

- I miss fiendish deathtraps in comics. It's just something that isn't done anymore, and it's kind of a sad loss if you ask me.

-Calling comic writers "Architects" is silly for a whole host of reasons. For the most part, they don't actually design anything as opposed to maintain an existing structure - that's not design, that maintenance. But as I've stated before "Corporate copyright Maintenance men" doesn't have quite that ring to it, you know?

-Another "This is something we don't need to see again" - a replacement Fantastic Four member.

-I feel sorry for the writers who have to fill in for JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman. Imagine spending all those years striving to work on your craft, climbing the rungs of the corporate field, with your dream of getting to work on one of the biggest franchises in history. Then, when you finally get there, you're hired to be a glorified ghostwriter. That's got to sting.

-Does anybody remember when superheroes actually fought each other because they...actually didn't like each other that much? As opposed to fighting each other because of some disagreements about a vague political debate?

-OK, let me get this straight - in the Captain America series right now, Bucky (the current Cap) is being put on trial for a few murders he committed over the course of about six decades, but Wolverine, who probably has a body count that would put him in the Hague for a war crimes tribunial and spends nearly half his time as a member of a group of untrusted mutants is a full-fledged Avenger who goes out in public and no one even bats an eye? How does that work?

Superman and Captain America - Contrasts

It's interesting to me that Captain America and Superman are often considered synonymous with America, given the contrasts in their back stories, and how that reflects on their characters.


First, when you think about it, Clark's experiences growing up exposed him to possibly the best features of America - granted, farming isn't exactly the most prosperous lifestyle, but it's hard not to see some of the most idealized aspects of the American immigrant story in Superman's upbringing. He starts out on a small farm in the middle of nowhere in a Norman Rockwell conception of America, and then climbs out of that to a more middle-class urban existence as a crusading reporter in the big city. That's the stuff the American Dream of social mobility is all about.

By comparison, Steve Rogers? He got to see some of the worst times in American history - his parents dying not because of crime, but because of the horrors of disease and the Great Depression. His upbringing was one of isolation and struggle to survive, and he did. He had to rise above it, he had to...well, he had to transform himself so he wouldn't become bitter and cynical. He had to believe in something more than what his experiences told him life had to offer.

What's also interesting is comparing the methods both take in their particular version of the American Dream. Captain America is all about defending the platonic Ideal of the DREAM - his weapon is a shield for a reason - he's all about DEFENCE - from external threats, from twisted versions of the dream (which is why there are so many "evil versions" of Cap out there), etc. Captain America focuses on the big picture. Superman, or at least, Superman at his very best, is more about the details. He focuses on the more immediate issues of security - preventing a robbery, stopping/relieving disasters, helping people when there are no other systems left to turn to. Superman is there to help, but its in those small moments of heroics that you see Clark Kent, the farmboy and the pragmatist, trying to make life just a little more tolerable by sharing the amazing gifts as a way for saying "thanks". If Cap is all about being the top cop protecting the community, Superman is all about giving back to the community, and defending it is just one part of that.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

Remembrance Day

Deadpool Week Day 6

Easily my favorite era- the Cable/Deadpool Series. Just sit back and enjoy

Plot Devices that Need to Go Away #11

Plot Devices that Need to Go Away #11

THE DYNASTY


Also known as: The ______ Family, the ____ Corps, League, etc.

What is it?

It's a group of of a characters based around a primary "Classic" character, with multiple versions of the same powerset/personality/narrative arcs with only moderate tweaks.

Why Do Comic Companies Do It?

Multiple reasons:

1) Nothing succeeds like success and excess.
2) It's easier to come up with a variation of an old character than to create a new character or to modify/retcon the old one to fit the new variation.

3) Because creators increasingly keep their most original ideas for their own projects.

Recent Offenders Include but are not limited to:

Superman - Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Powergirl (yes she counts), Steel, The Eradicator.

Flash - Barry, Wally, Jay, NuImpulse, Jesse Quick, Max Mercury, Bart/Kid Flash

Green Lantern - Hal, Kyle, Guy, John, Alan (I don't count the non-Earth ones here).

Batman - Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Azrael, Red Robin, Robin, Batwoman, Batgirl, Spoiler, and I'm sure there's a couple more I'm missing.

Green Arrow: Oliver Queen, Connor Hawke, Arsenal, Speedy, Arrowette (sorta counts?)

Oh, and if you think this is just a DC thing...you're wrong, because Marvel is jumping on this bandwagon like it's going on out of style.

Captain America - Steve Rogers, Bucky, Patriot, Nomad, USAgent (sorta counts if you ask me) and I could make a case for Jack Flag

Iron Man - Iron Man, Rescue, War Machine

Hulk - Red Hulk, Green Hulk, the three She-Hulks, A-bomb, the other two Hulk kids...

Wolverine - Logan, Daken, X-23

Spider-Man - Peter Parker, Venom, Anti-Venom, Spider-Girl/Arana, Spider-Woman, Arachne/Julia Carpenter

Patient Zero

While the SHAZAM Marvel Family are certainly the first "family" of supercharacters, I don't count them as part of this particular phase.

No, I think Patient Zero is the 90s "Batfamily" and "Superfamily" of comics where most of these guys (Superboy, Azrael, Nightwing) really started spawning their own separate titles.

Why does it have to go away?

Redundancy, pure and simple - guys like Superman and Batman aren't unique if there are 9 other people in the same universe who can do almost the same thing.

Angles for Redemption of the Device:


OK, I admit that the Kon-El/Conner Kent clone Superboy is a guilty pleasure of mine, but that said? The best thing to do is to phase out a lot of these unnecessary variants or at least start making larger distinctions and differences - and keeping them apart from each other wouldn't hurt either.

Subjects Required

So, I've got nearly 100 images in my cache ready for poster-making. Are there any subjects or categories you'd like to see? Right now, I'm thinking of working on some more generic posters about specific powers/abilities and categories of superheroes, but I'm open to suggestions.

Your thoughts please

Because it never gets old, does it?

Continuity Implant - STAT!

Here's where the "sliding timescale" is about to bite Marvel in the ass in a big way.

OK, I can accept that the Magneto walking/flying/menacing his way around modern day Marvel Earth is a lot younger than he should be because hey, when he got his proper age restored waaayyy back in the Claremont X-men days, well, he could have had his age reset in his late 30s for all we know.

That's not the problem.

The problem is the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

If we assume that they are thirty five years old (which is the upper limit of assuming their ages) that gives them a birthdate of 1975....which is 30 years AFTER World War Two. Which means that at best, Magneto (and Magda, his wife who was also a Holocaust survivor) would have been into their forties. This of course, is a problem that is only going to get worse as the timeline keeps sliding forward, and you have to do some impressive mental gymnastics to work around this issue.

Now, clearly I'm not saying that Magneto's origin needs to be fully retconned - like it or not, the Holocaust experience gives the character most, if not all of his gravitas and makes the character's motivations much more dramatic, revealing, and even on occassion, understandable (if not sympathetic). But don't be surprised if in the next twenty years someone in the Marvel Braintrust comes up with the idea that Magneto subconsiously "electromagnetically extended his own lifespan as well as that of his wife" in order to prevent this problem from getting any worse.

The heck with it, let's call it Gamer week, shall we?

I really don't think I'm going to have much to say about comics until after SDCC and all that news filters out and I've digested it, so let's go with this, ok?