It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Another Summer Blockbuster!

So I love comics. It's a little known fact about me, but I have read comics since I was a little kid. This is probably because I used to go to work with my Dad (and am now employed by said father), and there was/is a comic book shop just two doors down from our store.

I have mostly read Marvel, though I dabbled in a few DC titles, and am a BIG fan of DC's "adult/alternative" publishing arms Vertigo and Wildstorm. I could talk about comics for an endlessly long blog (in fact, my 14 page term paper this spring was on The Avengers), but this post is instead going to focus on the recent surge in comic book movies.

The recent plethora of comic book based films started with the release of X-Men in May 2000 (I can't believe it's been EIGHT years since X-Men came out). Since then at least 20 comic book movies have been released with (off of the top of my head), even more in pre-production. Take a look:

X-Men (2000)
Spider-Man (2000)
Daredevil (2003)
Hulk (2003)
X-Men 2: X-Men United (2003)
Catwoman (2004)
Hellboy (2004)
Punisher (2004)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Sin City (2005)
Elektra (2005)
Fantastic Four (2005)
Constantine (2005)
Batman Begins (2005)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Superman Returns (2006)
X-Men 3 : The Last Stand (2006)
300 (2007)
30 Days of Night (2007)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
Ghost Rider (2007)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Iron Man (2008)
Wanted (2008)
Batman: The Dark Knight (2008)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
Punisher: War Zone (2008)

And all of those were just the ones I could think of (I did have to look up their release years. I mean, I'm not Ethan.) Granted, some of these were not the best interpretations of their respective comic books, but they were still released. I know a lot of people are OVER the whole super-hero/comic book movie trend (though to be fair, those are two different trends that happen to intersect pretty often), but as a total geek, I'm still way into it! As in, I'm not just looking forward to Dark Knight (I am), I'm looking forward to more new comic movies like Thor and Captain America and The Watchmen, more sequels like Iron Man 2 and even prequels like X-Men Orgins: Wolverine.

Something I think is really cool is the upcoming Avengers movie. Obvs, I'm excited because it's the Avengers, but I also am really into how Marvel's production team is setting up this movie. The point of the Avengers is that there are some threats that a single hero can't stop by him or herself, and thus have to team up with other generally solo adventurists to stop a great evil. So Marvel is going to first make solo movies for each of the heroes featured, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. This will allow the Avengers movie to thrive in its own right as a great story (assuming they don't draft a shitty script) rather than a jumble of origin stories for each character before the action can begin.

So far, two of the four pre-Avengers movies have been released, and Marvel has already worked to intertwine their movie characters in anticipation for the movie that will bring them all together. In Iron Man you can see Captain America's famed shield on Tony's workbench (if you look closely enough, under his arm), and there is an extra like thirty second clip after the credits (ALL OF THE CREDITS. WHICH WAS COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY) in which Sam Jackson invites Tony Stark to be a part of the "Avengers Initiative". And then of course, we have the cameo of Tony Stark in the newest Incredible Hulk movie. Rumor has it that there was even a scene of the Hulk movie that was cut which features Banner/Hulk going to the arctic and finding/seeing Captain America (who was of course frozen after his heroic exploits in WWII against the Nazis). I'm sorry, but this kind of stuff gives me a geek-gasm.

It's for sure more exciting than DC's plans for their JLA (Justice League of America) in which all of their flasship heroes appear, many for the first time on film. Even the few who have had solo movies like Batman and Superman, are not going to feature the actors who portrayed them in their solo adventures. I feel like comic fans are not going to have a HUGE problem with this because we're used to artists coming and going on books, visually reinterpreting the characters, but I'm not sure if general movie goers are going to understand why Christian Bale will star in Batman movies that are coming out only a few years before JLA.

I do have a small gripe with the Avengers movie however. The original line-up of the Avengers didn't include Captain America, but instead Ant-Man and his wife The Wasp. I understand that Cap is a much more recognizable hero, and was there starting at like issue #4, but I do wonder if Ant-Man or the Wasp will be included given that their solo movie (one is in the works) is not slated to premiere before the Avengers movie.

I just hope that the Thor and Captain America movies are good, because if they're not, I'm not sure how well The Avengers will fare. Neither are cookie-cutter "super hero" movies in that Thor is supposedly taking place in his home of Asgard, making it more of a fantasy movie, and the Captain America movie will be taking place during WWII, before Cap turns into a popsicle. We'll see.

Other superhero movies I'm looking foward to are The Dark Knight (obviously), The Watchmen (read it once, hopefully will again before the premiere), Y:The Last Man (in which Yorick is the only man in the world to not die of unknown causes), and The Runaways.

The last two are still in the script writing phase, but seriously look out for The Runaways. If this movie can come out, it should be great, as long as Marvel doesn't make it too kiddy. The general story is that a group of kids whose parents are good friends find out their parents are actually an evil cult and crimemasters, aliens and timetravelers, mutants and witches. It's hilarious, action packed, and full of teenage angst.






In other news, I TURN NINETEEN IN TWO DAYS.