Hmm... kind of all over the place today. Sorry for missing a couple of days, but everything I wrote was a huge downer. Both because of the events in Aurora (which I still can't shake... completely, anyway), and because I've been doing character sketches/arcs that are pretty fucking depressing. Anyway, today's collection of errant thoughts seems to be about Superhero movies.
If you know me IRL (“in real life” for those of you not hooked on the “net lingo”) know that I complained vocally, frequently, and drunkenly about the the distinct lack of a Spider-Man cameo in “The Avengers.” How could (I reasoned while trying to remember how you’re supposed to hold a beer) something as epic as a full on alien invasion of New York go down without Spider-Man even swinging in for a quick “Everybody gets one?” It’s his city. Was he in the sewers chasing down The Lizard? In Brooklyn having some alone time with Mary Jane? Special alone time. Ehh? Ehhhh!?! Fucking. I’m talking about fucking. Probably on the ceiling.
Then, once sober and again capable of utilizing Google, I found out that Spider-Man is a Sony property, not a Disney property. As such, we’ll never get the amazing Secret Wars crossover that we all so crave. And don’t tell me Secret Wars is a bad idea. They said the same thing about the Avengers and hah, that totally worked.
It’s just unfortunate that it’s come to this. One of the great things about being a comic fan is that all the comics collectively paint one, cohesive universe. Granted, there are side-universes, and confusing single run mini-series alternate timelines, but you know that if some shit goes down in New York that’s of any significance to the Marvel universe, that Spider-Man is going to have something to do with it. Unless he’s off doing something else really important. Seriously. On the ceiling. Think about it.
Avengers not only managed to capture that magic, but used it to make what is arguably the best comic book film ever. When Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man are having a conversation it’s Captain America, Thor, and motherfucking Iron Man having a conversation! But the magic can only go so far, as our beautiful comic book universes are sub-devided like so many arid tracts of land.
And that, of course, brings us to The Mouse. Disney isn’t exactly going to be kid gloves about regaining the rights from Sony and Fox for the rest of the stable of characters that were sold off in ‘98 by Marvel. Disney spent $4.3 buying Marvel property in 2009, and since we’ve seen three pretty fucking good Marvel movies that weren’t exactly slouches at the box office. Then we have The Avengers, which cleared $1.5 billion at the box office all by itself. Obviously, box office alone won’t pay the money back, but I’m sure it helps. Besides, buying a production company that proceeds to crank out The Fucking Avengers isn’t exactly bad business. We’ve seen that bringing a comic book universe to life in its (near)entirety can work. For once, Disney, use your powers for good. Bring all the properties under your warm, mouse-shaped umbrella. Make a Deadpool/Wolverine/Spider-Man fight a reality and I swear I’ll feed my future kids the Disney Kool-Aid at a young age. Their brains are yours.
While a move to bring together the Marvel Universe together under one umbrella is an intriguing concept, quite the opposite is true of DC. I speak of the now announced, forever inevitable Justice League movie. That will suck. Oh yes. It will suck. But it will happen, and soon. All Time Warner had to do was get that pesky Christopher Nolan out of the picture before he mucked up a perfectly good money press with all of his “artistic integrity.” Without him, they’re free to slap together a Batman movie whose only criteria need be: “He’s the goddamn batman.” That’s it. They can give him supernipples, make his costume purple again, give him some sort of hilarious medical disorder like narcolepsy or IBS. It won’t matter. And even if it did matter it wouldn’t matter. The only purpose of the next Batman movie will be to establish a new Batman with the public in time for him to appear in the “Holy shit I didn’t see that one coming” event of 2015: The Justice League. If they were concerned with making a good Batman movie, they wouldn’t be making another one at all (or any time soon). But they’re not concerned with making a good Batman movie. They’re concerned with getting a Batman movie out of the door before the superhero bubble bursts. Nipple lasers.
Then comes Wonder Woman, and believe it or not, this is actually something I feel rather passionately about. It wouldn’t make much sense, as I’ve never really read any Wonder Woman comics (just comics she ended up in) and I don’t exactly follow her with the stalkeresque eye I keep on Deadpool or Captain America. I’ve always just kinda dug Wonder Woman. As a concept, anyway. I know her costume is as ridiculous and over-sexualized as the next super-heroin’s, but as a concept I can really see a properly feminist (properly feminist) and modern version of Wonder Woman as an extremely compelling superhero. And while the vague concept that Wonder Woman is badass has been floating around in my head since a young age, it didn’t really become pronounced until I saw Haywire. At this point, I realized that there should be a modern Wonder Woman movie for no other reason than to not make one right fucking now would mean that we missed our opportunity to use the perfect actress. I mean, she is Wonder Woman; Gina Carano. We’ve been colluding to create her for years by stuffing RBGH into all of our food, and now that she exists we do society a disservice by not casting her as Wonder Woman. If for some reason anyone else is cast, I will... I’ll... I’ll probably just get drunk and write a blog condemning Hollywood for making another bad casting choice.
Huge Wonder Woman tangents aside, there’s a more clear and present danger at the moment: The Man of Steel. Zach Snyder, let’s talk: Don’t you fuck this up. Don’t you DARE fuck this up. I grew up actually liking Superman before I wised up and started reading comics about compelling superheroes that don’t have one over-exploited weakness. So I’m not the biggest Superman fan... But I grew up watching quality Superman movies. Ok, two quality Superman movies, and in all honesty I’m feeling a bit starved. My body is ready for a good Superman movie. I’m really rooting for this one. But if you pull a Sucker-Punch/Watchmen/300-... if you pull anything other than a Dawn of the Dead remake on this Superman movie, we’re not friends anymore. Seriously. No more Candygrams. THEN where will you be?
I seem to have wandered dangerously off topic. Thanks for spending another morning entertaining one of my maddeningly sideways warm-up exercises.
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