Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

Going to see Captain America 2 tonight - I caught the first one on Netflix and it was way better than I expected.

Avengers was a lot of fun in the theater, but I haven't watched it again. Not sure it would hold up at home.

Not a big fan of the Iron Man movies - RDJ's charisma is outweighed by every other element being dull.

Classic just for doing better than the non-MCU properties and waaaaaaaay better than DC.

It's quite a thing, spending hundreds of millions to make billions, and basing it all on superhero comics and boomer nostalgia. But they've managed to produce some reasonably good action films so far. My bias is based on Marvel Zombie status dating to 1972, but I try to be clear-eyed with dissenting views.

Dud, both for the passable-at-best movies and for the concept itself.

I guess the nostalgia is not limited to boomers, though. xp

The current crop are pretty classic (though classic seems too strong, tbh). I like the way the serialized, cross-property roll-out parallels the comics. Lots of titles, different takes on familiar characters, largely fun and competent, not totally stupid, thus far really well cast.

I also like the first two Singer X-Men movies a lot, or at least did at the time. Wish those and the FF were part of the official family. But Spider-man, I've got no problem letting him dangle.

just inoffensive and mediocre enough to be broadly popular

Rebooting Spider-man so soon after the other trilogy is easily the worst thing about this.

Spider-Man isn't part of the MCU.

I thought that was a Marvel comic.

Ah, rtfa, gotcha.

It is, but the MCU refers specifically to the properties controlled by Marvel Studios. Sony has movie rights to Spider-Man and Fox has the rights to X-Men stuff. It's kinda convoluted. xp

This sums things up quite nicely
http://jonnegroni.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/dnxshsd.png?w=700&h=560p

But also worth noting that the previous Punisher, Blade, and Daredevil movies and Ang Lee's Hulk don't count. A situation so convoluted it could've only been whipped up by people in the mainstream comics industry.

Milo summation otm

Good luck making a megafranchise out of Namor and Man-Thing, Universal and Lionsgate!

I was a huge comic-book fan as a kid. I dip in and out now as a 33-year-old and still enjoy them, but I've kind of lost interest in following the ins and outs of the Marvel comic-book universe. What I admire most about the Marvel movies is that they've taken the core things I loved about the characters I read as a kid and put them more or less wholesale on the screen.

Certainly, not all of them are great or even particularly good in some cases - I don't need to see Hulk, Iron Man 2 or Thor 2 again - but to me they all seem to have a level of affection for and understanding of the characters which in itself is actually pretty unusual for comic-book movies. Man of Steel is probably the worst example of this - everyone involved seemed actively embarrassed to be making movie about Superman - but there are plenty of others, like Bruce Wayne just straight-up giving up on being Batman for years in TDKR or Sandman turning out to be Uncle Ben's killer in Spider-Man 3.

If I was 12 years old now, I'd be thrilled that every six months I could go to the movies and see an excitingly-realised, generally faithful representation of the comics I loved on the screen. At 33, I enjoy them as fun action movies with an unusually ambitious shared-world underpinning which are for the most part way more coherent than other giant summer pictures.

In a interview with Total Film, Iron Man 3 co-writer and All Hail the King writer-director Drew Pearce mentioned seeing Damage Control as a possible Marvel One-Shot film.

If this actually happened it would make the whole enterprise worthwhile regardless of any other concerns imo

I've enjoyed most of the MCU movies, and I agree that the heroes have mostly been perfectly cast... But like I said in the Winter Soldier thread, I think probably the biggest flaw in these movies is that the villains have mostly been rather bland. It seems that the MCU has followed the lead of the Nolan Batman movies in that they try to make the villains "realistic" and gritty, i.e. that their origins are explained by "science", there's no magic or cosmic powers etc involved, they don't wear funky villains costumes, they don't have over-the-top despotic personalities, and so on... But this means the villains have mostly been corrupt businessmen or politicians, tough dudes in armor and/or with cybernetic parts, or (like Batroc in the new Cap movie) just your regular action movie thugs with some special martial arts moves, all of which are pretty boring. So while they've managed to turn memorable comic book heroes into memorable movie characters, the same hasn't really happened with the villains.

The biggest exception to the above is Loki, who benefits from the fact that Thor's setting is not "realistic" in any way, so they couldreally make him larger than life, No wonder they had Loki as the main antagonist in the Avengers movie (yeah, I know, he was the first Avengers villain in the comics too, but no one forced them to follow that pattern), since he's pretty much the only true & memorable supervillain they've done so far. But hopefully this'll change with upcoming Guardians and Dr. Strange movies, and when Ultron and Thanos turn up in Avengers... There's no way you could make those villains "realistic", so I hope they won't even try.

So far generally more towards the classic side, though I fear diminishing returns may set in soon unless they find some way of upping the already pretty massive stakes*. I like the ambition of having a network of narratively connected mega-budget films, it's something that has never been done before at all (unless you buy into the Unified Theory of Pixar, ha).

And I echo the point made above that pre-teen me would have loved the shit out of this, which is a fair indication they've been doing their job.

*I think a major character's death would help with this, but would they dare?

An interesting poll might be the MCU vs the Dark Knight trilogy. Had a long and repetitive debate in the pub on Friday about just that.

xp I'm pretty certain they'll kill Chris Evans and replace him as Captain America with Sebastian Stan. It's already laid out clearly in the comics and Evans is only signed up for six movies, which will be up after the next Cap / Avengers movies.

I guess that's possible... It was interesting that they didn't really resolve Bucky's plot arc in any way in the new Cap movie, so it seems they definitely have some future plans for him.

Well, Sebastian Stan's signed up for nine movies and he's only been in two, so...

Bucky's a way more interesting character than Cap, so I think it would do the MCU good to replace him in a few years - how much more mileage could they really wring out of Evans's essential goodness after two more movies?

Though if they kill anyone, I think it'll be Tony Stark. Downey it already starting to feel a bit old for the role, and I don't think he has too many movies left in his contract either? Plus there's comic book precedent too for another dude replacing him inside the armor, and that other dude is already a major supporting character in the movies. (The only problem with this is that they cast Don Cheadle as Rhodey, and he's as old as Downey is.)

(xxpost)

and he's as old as Downey is

So, er, not very old.

I think the Downey Problem is going to be make-or-break for the whole enterprise. The MCU is basically built on his charisma - if the first Iron Man had failed they would have been fucked for real. Downey's said he knows he can't (and doesn't want to) play Tony forever, and I think they'll have to recast Stark rather than replace him as Iron Man, at least in the long term. I don't think they'll kill him, but I'll be interested to see how they get around the inevitable problem of actors moving on for one reason or another. They're really in uncharted waters here - there's never been an interrelated movie universe where beloved actors will have to be replaced eventually.

and he's as old as Downey is

So, er, not very old.

I dunno, he's still 10 to 20 years older than the other actors, except for Ruffalo... And with Hulk the guy playing isn't as important, they've already changed him twice.

"with Hulk the guy playing Banner"

First Iron Man movie was good. Strong story and clever lines. Everything else I've seen has been middling. I do like that they got Kenneth Branagh to do the first Thor movie -- that was a clever choice.

Tuomas mostly OTM upthread about the MCU villains so far. I don't think the issue is so much that they've tried to 'grittify' them, though, so much as the rogue's galleries of the heroes who've starred in movies so far just aren't very deep or exciting or Marvel don't own the rights to best of them. Like, an Iron Man vs Doctor Doom movie could be aces but will never happen if Fox have any say in the matter. Whiplash just isn't on the same level.

I think Avengers is the best so far, as it should've been.

True, but they haven't really done a good job with the rogues galleries' they do have available either... Like, the Mandarin thing in Iron Man 3 was a clever plot twist, but that just meant the real bad guy was yet another corrupt business type. (Obviously they couldn't use the comic book Mandarin as he was originally conceiced, since he's a Fu Manchu style racist stereotype, but they could've made him into a R'as al Ghul style righteous terrorist or something, and make him have actual superpowers.) And one of the reasons Thor 2 was worse than Thor 1 is because they Malekith into a totally generic baddie, even though the comic book Malekith is a cool villain (a gende-bending shapeshifter elf), and they even had a good actor playing him. That was a total waste of what could've been a potentially great villain.

(xpost)

There was a lot of talk around the release of Thor 2 that Malekith had suffered at the expense of reshoots which expanded Loki's role in response to universal admiration for Hiddleston. They definitely did a terrible job with Malekith and Kurse; I wonder if they were less dull in the original plan for the movie.

I was a huge comic-book fan as a kid. I dip in and out now as a 33-year-old and still enjoy them, but I've kind of lost interest in following the ins and outs of the Marvel comic-book universe. What I admire most about the Marvel movies is that they've taken the core things I loved about the characters I read as a kid and put them more or less wholesale on the screen.

I was a huge comic-book fan as a kid. I still passionately read massive amounts of comics as a 33+-year-old [I spent $770 just on posting comics home to myself in two months in the US last year] and the Marvel comic-book universe can eat my balls. What I admire least about the Marvel movies is the way they make literal billions of dollars and return none of this to the people that created these IP or wrote the specific stories the films are based on.

Plus, if they don't want to limit themselves to "canonical Iron Man villains" or "canonical Cap villains", there's a whole bunch of cool Avengers they could use: Kang the Conqueror! Count Nefaria! Masters of Evil! Korvac! The Absorbing Man And Titania! It definitely seems to be like they've decidedly used the more "realistic" villains, and left out the ones with more fantastic powers and larger-than-life personalities.

(xxpost)

Def. pisses me off that Stan Lee gets a cameo in the new Cap America movie, a character he had nothing to do w/ creating

I don't think Kirby or Simon were available

sic, are you objecting to the MCU on the grounds of lack of monetary compensation for creators or because you don't enjoy them as movies? I'm not disagreeing with the former - I think it's utterly shameful - but I wasn't clear on the latter from what you wrote.

Ah, this debate again.

Anyway, Loki def. the only villain with presence thus far in these films. Which is odd, because I think they did a good job with the Spider-man villains so far (at least with the Raimi ones), and X-Men villains. Maybe it's just a matter of casting the right actor? Like, Red Skull is a great villain, but maybe Hugo Weaving was not the best choice? But then, Iron Man has faced nothing but generic baddies so far, actors be damned. Didn't Thor fight a giant robot in the first movie?

What I admire least about the Marvel movies is the way they make literal billions of dollars and return none of this to the people that created these IP or wrote the specific stories the films are based on.

While I agree that this is shitty, it's pretty much the standard practice with all entertainment franchises, no? Like, does the guy who wrote the original Wrath of Khan screenplay get any royalties from the Star Trek: Into Darkness? I doubt he does.

There's a rumour that Gerry Conway is banned from the premiere of the new Spider-man film, despite it apparently being based on one of his most famous issues.

(Google suggests this might now be resolved after the director took the issue to Sony.)

I've enjoyed at least a third of these movies.

So, dud.

A third of each movie, or a third of the movies total?

sic, are you objecting to the MCU on the grounds of lack of monetary compensation for creators or because you don't enjoy them as movies? I'm not disagreeing with the former - I think it's utterly shameful - but I wasn't clear on the latter from what you wrote.

I won't see them for this reason, so I don't have any view at all on their quality.

(Liked the first Iron Man on a cheap matinee, second one was far less good, wasn't interested in Thor or Hulk 2, wasn't interested in Cap 1 and Marvel getting a summary judgment against the Kirby heirs in the week of release made me go "eeesh, I can't pay for any of these that I might be interested in in the future." Mantlo's brother specifically asking people with financial qualms to go see Guardians Of The Galaxy means I might, but my reason for interest is Pratt and Gunn. Maaaaybe I'd watch Avengers on TV, but I doubt I'd enjoy it as much as Cabin In The Woods or Much Ado.) [I'd have been curious about watching maybe half an hour of Winter Soldier to see how the Russos' style might translate to an action film.]

― bizarro gazzara, Monday, April 7, 2014 10:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While I agree that this is shitty, it's pretty much the standard practice with all entertainment franchises, no? Like, does the guy who wrote the original Wrath of Khan screenplay get any royalties from the Star Trek: Into Darkness? I doubt he does.

I'm not interested in Star Trek Into Darkness either!

Anyway, no: the creators of most of the Marvel characters were specifically promised financial participation that they were never given; if Meyer doesn't get residuals from home video sales and TV broadcasts of Wrath Of Khan, it's because he specifically agreed to forgo them in whatever arbitration took place over his credit; under Levitz, creators who'd had story elements inspire aspects of DC movie plots quietly got appreciation cheques [this has ended under Nelson, obviously]; George Lucas got lots of the money from at least five out of six Star Wars movies; J.K. Rowling earns about $400 million a year from Harry Potter.

People being fucked over wrt media properties doesn't have to be a rule: every time someone is, it's because other people have made an active decision to do so.

I read an interview with Brubaker where he was like "it's great that this is the first time Marvel have made a movie where there's a book with the same name as it out there so hopefully I'll get some more royalties". It seems crazy that he won't see any money directly

I mean, I was mainly saying comic books /= Marvel.

xpost - Brubaker only gets domestic royalties at all because he's currently signed exclusively to Marvel. They don't pay them as a matter of course, and IIRC haven't paid foreign royalties since the 1980s.

Meyer didn't create Khan, of course (character pre-exists the Wrath of Khan)

sic, do you read Marvel comics?

With all the talking Feige does about the decades worth of stories they have to draw on, the original comics being the perfect storyboards etc. you'd think he's find a way to get the original creators some cash (even just an appreciation cheque)

I've seen Iron Man and The Avengers, didn't really see the fun in either. I'm fine with dumb action if it's done with a bit of style. These movies have huge visual effects but never anything really cool going on style-wise.

Stan Lee cameos are horrible

the loudest manifestation of mass-culture lobotomy

sic, do you read Marvel comics?

I've read Marvel comics.

But in North America last year I bought comics by Oily Comics and Yam Books and Desert Island and USS Catastrophe and Traditional Comics and Study Group Comics and Retrofit and Picturebox and Drippy Bone Books and Floating World and Paper Rocket and Mille Putois and Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics and Adhouse Books and Alternative and Knockabout and Tundra and Last Gasp and The Overlook Press and Escape and Aardvark-Vanaheim and Bergen Street Comics and A Fine Line Press and Blank Slate and Eat More Bikes and Copra Press and Buenaventura Press and Pigeon Press and Look Mom, Comics and Space Face Books and Revival House Press and Koyama Press and Fontanelle Press and Jackie No-Name Books and Matrix Graphic Series and Igloo Tornado and Perfect Day Publishing and Tugboat Press and Hic & Hoc and Cartozia Press and Art & Soul Comics and Hidden Fortress Press and Catastrophe Comics Group and Hotel Fred Press and Robin Bougie and World Protector and New Reliable Press and Red Ink and Secret Prism and Kilgore Books and Thuban Press and Iamwar Pubs and Breakdown Press and Rotland Press and Sequential Artists Workshop and Wishbone Studio and Penguin Books and Marlowe & Company and Harper Collins and Coach House Books and Henry Holt & Co., and five by Marvel (four early-90s reprints of 1964-1972 Doctor Who comics, and a Paul Tobin quarter-bin back issue [it was bad].)

Cool, thanks for the clarification.

classic. these have definitely contributed to the high standard of children's movies we're currently experiencing.

Stan Lee cameos are horrible

Topped only by the most unworthily self-congratulatory rounds of applause to be endured anywhere.

Happily, Stan Lee will be 105 in 2028.

DC really needs some Funky Flashman cameos to mock them

Noah was better than all the DC comic movies but worse than all the Avenger Marvel comic movies but about the same as the X-Men/Skateboard Spider-Man Marvel movies.

Dr Morbius, I don't suppose you named yourself after Morbius The Living Vampire? He was a doctor before he was a vampire. I think the comics code insisted on "living vampire" because a regular vampire was deemed too scary for children.

I lean very far towards DUD, for the reasons Charles Hatless (who I'm assuming is Charles Hatfield)and others listed.

I very much agree with Jmm that superhero films are visually lacking in the extreme. I like Sam Raimi but I thought that was the main glaring flaw of his Spiderman films. I think Del Toro's Hellboy films and some stuff in the Burton Batman films are the only exceptions I can think of.

I'll admit that a lot of the reasons I dislike these films are not really to do with the film's themselves. I hate that they are motivated mainly by IP farming and that you can't really escape the franchises. Adverts when I turn on my kindle or go into my email inbox. Products in the supermarket. Seeing litter of sweet wrappers and wet discarded socks with Spiderman on them is horrible. As if James Bond and Star Wars weren't enough. How did Lord Of The Rings turn into a merchandise powerhouse? I thought the Tolkien family controlled everything and hated that stuff?
I do think of that story of Kirby turning pale at the mention of going to a toy shop, but I mainly just hate how inescapable all this stuff is.

I was kind of interested when I heard the possibility of Del Toro doing Dr Strange and Kirby's Demon but I don't think those are happening for him anymore. I'm glad Mountains Of Madness never happened. Joe Pulver said he'd like to do a Dr Strange book and that sounds interesting too but I'd rather he just did his own thing.

Isolating the films: I liked Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, Devito as Penguin, Nicholson as Joker, Ledger as Joker (my fave is still Bruce Timm/Mark Hamill Joker), Hardy's Bane, Dallas as Fandral The Dashing; but I don't like the film's all that much aside from moments here and there. Although I'd say Nolan's Batman and Raimi's first two Spiderman films are pretty good.

There is a problem with supervillains, in making them believable. There has been a fair number of costumed vigilantes in real life but costumed criminals I've never heard of apart from rapists in Malaysia who dress as the oily orange man of their folklore.

One thing that bothers me about the general approach to superheroes today is that it seems like it's all motivated by fanboys in denial about superheroes being silly(not necessarily a bad quality). Superman and Captain America have been made increasingly about certain concepts because people have trouble reconciling that they are historically important to the genre but not very interesting characters.
Fanboy says "oh my God it's so serious, iconic, relevant. This new event where loads of characters die and get raped is so fucking serious, it'll change everything forever! These heroes are so iconic, I need lots of statues and collectables to try and convince myself I haven't been wasting my time; these hardback collections aren't obscenely priced at all, these are important iconic modern myths. There's nothing wrong with Stan Lee's writing, people used to talk like that and state the obvious repeatedly. Blah blah blah iconic blah blah blah serious blah blah iconic super relevant modern myths that say so much about our times, blah blah blah iconic iconic iconic".

Bloody comic fandom overrun with an equivalent of rockists a hundred times worse than in music fandom. I weep and yearn for a day when I can be excited by comics industry again.

Richard Nixon in Days of Future Past might be the breakout villain everyone was hoping for.

the enterprise is notable for its audacity and scale, but in general I don't really care. I've seen a handful and they were okay, nothing I would really want to watch more than once.

sic otm in general

If they made an Adam Warlock movie, then I might go full fanboy.

It would take an uncommonly stylish Creeper, Silver Surfer, Namor, Ghost Rider, Man-Thing or Dr Strange film for me to get excited. That old Catwoman script with her fighting superheroes in a beach town sounded fun but also like a negative parody of superheroes which DC probably wouldn't appreciate. Maybe Swamp Thing, Sandman, Metamorpho, Shade The Changing Man.

Maybe great films based on DC and Marvel stuff would annoy me more because I'd rather talented people focus on new ideas.

dunno if this is still happening but it could be cool

Rumors in November 2012 suggested that Guillermo del Toro was working on a Justice League Dark film titled Heaven Sent. It would feature Deadman, the Spectre, Swamp Thing, Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Zatanna, Zatara, Sargon the Sorcerer, and Etrigan the Demon.[28] Del Toro later confirmed in January 2013 that he is working on such a movie, with the working title, Dark Universe, and is hiring a screenwriter for the film. Del Toro revealed Swamp Thing, Constantine, The Spectre, Deadman, Zatanna and Zatara were characters in the story.

I heard about that a couple of years ago and it does sound quite exciting (damn them) but I assumed it was just another thing heaped on the pile of things he's optioned but will never do. I'm genuinely worried he'll end up doing far more adaptations and remakes than original films (looking forward to Crimson Peak), but of all the adaptations/remakes, Dan Simmons' Drood sounds the most promising. He seems to have his heart set firmly on Frankenstein but I just can't get excited about that.

I do think that all the fan-service crap Marvel is beholden to really constrains and limits what's possible with this material.

What would be possible otherwise?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7f/Howard_the_Duck_(1986).jpg/220px-Howard_the_Duck_(1986).jpg

Dare to dream the impossible dream.

I know, can't bite the hand that feeds

but it's not really that hard to imagine alternatives is it? keeping everything tied into a single continuity unique or unusual takes on characters

Another thing that would revert me to geekish excitement is a film starring Fin Fang Foom, Groot, Gargantus, Grogg, Rommbu, Gorgolla, Goom, Orrgo, Shagg, Scarecrow etc.

It'd be extremely unlikely but if it did happen there'd be no excuse for no money to Kirby's family. Because those monsters are about as Kirby as it gets.

DC should make a Fourth World film and pay the Kirby estate, just to fuck with Marvel (also it would rule).

xp I seriously do wonder, though. I feel like the shared universe is actually giving us more opportunities to see stuff like Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Whether they'll be good, I don't know, but they can't be worse than Elektra or Ghost Rider at their general competence level now.

I can see what you mean if there was something floating around like an adaptation of more serious/non-superhero stuff like Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, and so on, but nothing is coming to mind in the MU (lol thanks for reminding me of Howard the Duck - I had no idea it was even a Marvel comic for years after the fact).

aldo: Are DC and Kirby's estate on good terms? I wonder if the family was paid for their use in (for example) the various DCAU series

I'd say Marvel, quite justifiably, doesn't care what hardcore comics fans want to see tbh. They can't make blockbuster money off the 5,000 people who buy a non-X/Spider-Man/Avengers-related graphic novel.

yeah these films are consistent if nothing else

at the same time, wouldn't it be cool if there was room for non-continuity pitches, like, say a heist movie starring MU supervillains

xp

Are DC and Kirby's estate on good terms? I wonder if the family was paid for their use in (for example) the various DCAU series

they're definitely on better terms than Marvel and the Kirby estate (but I'll defer to the more knowledgable sic here)

one of those DCAU episodes was dedicated to Jack fwiw

and they clearly (affectionately) modeled Dan Turpin after him in the Superman TAS. man that was a great show.

Marvel will put the mid-tier and oddball stuff in TV pitches.

Every month is a new single-character series from Marvel (I'm getting in 50 copies of the All-New Doop series tomorrow, pretty sure I over-ordered), in part I'd guess it's orders from Disney/Marvel Studios to test the waters.

Not sure about Kirby in particular, but DC aren't any better in general as Al Plastino's recent death showed.

There's a Doop series now? Wow.

Thor IV: Thor Is Not Dead
Thor V: Asgard Is for Real

I was thinking about this earlier, how it's a small miracle that by and large these movies are not terrible. Things they have to contend with:

1) decades of comic stories/mythology/continuity
2) several interlocking films and their shared mythology/continuity
3) The devil's bargain that is Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking
4) the prospect of several more films continuing plots/characters set in motion
5) A hunk of major characters owned or permanently leased or however it works to other studios
6) Hyper-nerd, detail-minded fans who, who knows, maybe could kill one of these movies, if they could resist.

That's a lot of juggling to do, a lot of constraints. The addition of Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch to the next Avengers as (maybe? likely?) non-mutants in a world without Magneto and/or mutants, might be the biggest muddling yet to the canon, which ironically, in the name of convenience, could make things even more convoluted.

Is there really a Doop series in the making, or was that a joke? Because I would so watch it, especially if all of his lines were incomprehensible.

Marvel wouldn't have the rights to Doop anyway seeing as he's a mutant

Speaking of Howard The Duck, there is quite a few screen DC and Marvel properties that nobody talks about anymore... Nick Fury (Hasselhoff), 90s Fantastic Four (I think this was filmed without the creators knowing it was never going to be released but I'm sure it was eventually released), an old cheap Dr Strange film, 70s Spiderman, Japanese Spiderman, Supergirl, Swamp Thing on tv and film, Man-Thing, I'm sure there is more (animation doesn't count)

Those all take place in different, stand-alone universes.

The addition of Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch to the next Avengers as (maybe? likely?) non-mutants in a world without Magneto and/or mutants, might be the biggest muddling yet to the canon

IIRC Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver being mutants wasn't really a big thing for years after they debuted in The Avengers comic. This was before mutants became a hot commodity, so they weren't really connected to the X-Men, and even the fact that Magneto was their father was retcon that happened years after their introduction. I'd say even today they're still considered to be more "Avengers characters" than "mutant characters".

That's true, the Magneto reveal came later. Though of course Quicksilver is in the new X-Men movie, one assumes as a mutant.

Seriously, though, that's something I like about these things. All these characters have been drawn and written so many different people, over the years, in different ways, different titles, through different storylines, that it's kind of neat to see the movies approach them in a similarly constantly reinventing manner.

Also, the stinger at the end of Winter Soldier seemed to hint that in the movie universe they were genetically engineered by HYDRA, i.e. not the same sort of mutants as the X-Men.

(xpost)

I think that sometimes giving the hard-core fans what they want is often a terrible idea. You'd maybe get what is sometimes referred to as "jacking off over a longbox" (continuity fetishism). That has to be my favourite comics term I've heard. Another is "Swamp Thing envy" (people trying to redefine a character in a major way that doesn't just stop at fresh reinvention).

If one has to do these characters, I think reinvention is the best way to go but what "Swamp Thing envy" criticizes is calculated attempts at making the new interpretation becoming the dominant version or something looked on as an important version.

And to be honest, Scarlet Witch has one of the least feasibly "mutant" powers in the Marvel comics... It was her mutated genes that made he a magician?

It was only topped by Longshot's power: it was his genetical mutation that allowed him to always have luck on his side... Because that's what genes do.

Is there really a Doop series in the making, or was that a joke? Because I would so watch it, especially if all of his lines were incomprehensible.

In the past couple of months:
Black Widow
She-Hulk
Ghost Rider
Silver Surfer
Ms. Marvel (doesn't really count in the same way, I guess)
Iron Patriot
Punisher

Upcoming:
Elektra
Daredevil
Hulk

It was only topped by Longshot's power: it was his genetical mutation that allowed him to always have luck on his side... Because that's what genes do.

― Tuomas, Monday, April 7, 2014 3:54 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IRL, only the papercut of of a radioactive playing card.

re: kirby i read somewhere that the dolph lundgren he-man movie was a tribute to 4th world

I loved Howard the Duck when I was a kid, and saw it again much later and thought it was hilarious and awesome. I don't really understand the hate, it is quite possibly a better movie than Return of the Jedi.

The He-Man movie was great fun, but had pretty much NOTHING to do w the cartoon/toys and pretty much killed He-Man for me. It was a super entertaining late-era Star Wars ripoff tho.

Really looking forward to Dr. Strange. I loved the Avengers, but two of the members were basically just every day normal human spies. Give me more cosmic stuff and I'll be there (the military stuff in Iron Man and Captain America kinda keep me away from those movies).

in the new film about Jodorowsky's Dune, they make a quick (but convincing) argument that mobius' work on that failed film informed the look and feel of Masters of the Universe

I weep and yearn for a day when I can be excited by comics industry again.

You can’t get excited by an industry including Self Made Hero and Blank Slate and Nobrow and Oily and Retrofit and D&Q and Fanta and March and Hyperbole And A Half (never mind the printing quality, feel the bookstore penetration) and Study Group and Stephenson’s Image, and Dark Horse supporting full-colour Evan Dorkin and reviving Shaolin Cowboy, and Humanoids and Dunbier and Copra and Koyama and Floating World and Desert Island and TCAF and SPX and Thought Bubble and Octopus Pie and Smut Peddler and the Inkstuds tour and only four months since Picturebox published?

Are DC and Kirby's estate on good terms?

cf my Diane Nelson ref

um, what?

Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

I get you. Didn't know that, though I had heard that about Levitz.

There is certainly good stuff being published but I'm extremely jaded and fickle about comics but I don't think my relatively narrow taste is the problem. The fact that Fantagraphics were recently in trouble was some of the worst news ever. In recent years I did get into some great stuff (Frantisek Skala, Jeremy Bastian, Kentaro Miura, Carlos Nine, Dave Cooper, Patrick McEown, Jonny Negron, Nicolas Dr Crecy) but nothing has really blown me away in all aspects, in a long time. Always something good and interesting but rarely anything to get giddy about in the way that books, music, film and tv have several things a year to salivate over; the best you can usually hope for is some interesting drawings. Maybe if you can speak several languages and go around the world buying.

Really looking forward to Dr. Strange. I loved the Avengers, but two of the members were basically just every day normal human spies. Give me more cosmic stuff and I'll be there (the military stuff in Iron Man and Captain America kinda keep me away from those movies).

Joss Whedon has said this is one reason he wanted Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, because he realized the Avengers were dominated by "punchy powers."

That sounds good! One of the worst recent trends in superhero comics is the "superheroes act like soldiers/cops" macho vibe spearheaded by Bendis, and this seems to have bled into the movies as well. If I want to watch cops I'll watch a regular cop show, superhero stories should have cosmic shenanigans and weirdo characters.

Well Classic or Dud they making bank
http://www.slashfilm.com/marvel-cinematic-universe-box-office/

classic all around. best thing to happen to movies since wes anderson.

chris ware's hawkeye would be great as a silent movie directed by kathryn bigelow with nothing but a ragtime soundtrack and some tasteful explosions.

That sounds good! One of the worst recent trends in superhero comics is the "superheroes act like soldiers/cops" macho vibe spearheaded by Bendis, and this seems to have bled into the movies as well. If I want to watch cops I'll watch a regular cop show, superhero stories should have cosmic shenanigans and weirdo characters.

And why doesn’t Batman dance anymore? Remember the Batusi?

the hardboiled cop thing works for Batman (altho I thought the campy 60s series worked great too) but different characters are best suited to different approaches

Yeah, it might work for some characters, but I don't really care abot those characters (like Batman) anyway. But what Bendis and his followers did was to make pretty much all Marvel characters they touched into hard-boiled cops/soldiers, which I hated. Thankfully the worst days seem to be over (at least in comics), in the last few years titles like Avengers Academy or Young Avengers or Journey into Mystery have brought back the idealism and cosmic adventures and weirdo vibes, which I feel are much better suited for these characters.

Huh - I felt like Bendis made every character into snarky goofballs, like Spider-Man

I can't really imagine why someone would portray Captain America as a soldier.

I'd blame it more on Millar and the success of the Ultimates, but blame isn't the word I'd use.

can't imagine at all why the alter ego of a dude who was turned into a superhuman by the US Army via the Super-Soldier project would be portrayed like a soldier, nothing at all rings a bell.

And why doesn’t Batman dance anymore? Remember the Batusi?

― Your Favorite Album in the Cutout Bin, Thursday, April 10, 2014 12:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

apparently Mark Millar is performing the Whedon-style creative consultant role for Fox's forthcoming superhero movies. That's their big plan

http://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcRBYlopjEgakr7HC0_klBA27EPY1kmDLkuRbuExoTU2AvoEXX9P8g

http://img0.joyreactor.cc/pics/comment/%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA-%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BA-%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B1%D0%B8-spiderman-%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0-456605.png

I can't really imagine why someone would portray Captain America as a soldier.

I'd blame it more on Millar and the success of the Ultimates, but blame isn't the word I'd use.

― Your Favorite Album in the Cutout Bin, 10. huhtikuuta 2014 20:52

can't imagine at all why the alter ego of a dude who was turned into a superhuman by the US Army via the Super-Soldier project would be portrayed like a soldier, nothing at all rings a bell.

― getting strange ass all around the globe (Neanderthal), 10. huhtikuuta 2014 20:58

Er, if you didn't notice it, I wasn't talking just about Captain America, but Avengers in general... And it isn't just portraying Captain America as a soldier (which has been done before Bendis, though some writers have also distanced him from that), but this all hard-boiled superheroes-as-paramilitary-experts, which was popularized by Bendis - and yes, by Millar too. Many writers have used Cap as the leader of Avengers in the past without the Avengers becoming all macho.

But Bendis quite specifically tore apart the whole concept of Avengers (in Disassembled) just so he could remake them in the hard-boiled style he favours. And I'm not saying there's a room for a superhero book like this, but the influence of Bendis and Millar was felt all across Marvel comics at this time, with the cosmic superheroes like Guardians of the Galaxy being the main exception. (Because of this, GotG was pretty much the best Marvel title around that time, so it's kinda ironic that now Bendis has taken over it and made into a macho comic too.) So it was kinda overwhelming, and depressing for those of us who don't particularly care for this kind of superhero writing.

And the influence of Bendis and Millar and co. has definitely bled into the movies as well. Take Hawkeye, for example: in the main Marvel universe he was an anti-authoritarian, tricksterish former criminal, which made him into a nice foil for Cap. But the movies have taken their cue from the Ultimates, where's his just this super-professional company man, i.e. a much more boring and generic action movie hero.

"DO YOU THINK THIS A STANDS FOR FINLAND?"

Take Hawkeye, for example: in the main Marvel universe he was an anti-authoritarian, tricksterish former criminal, which made him into a nice foil for Cap. But the movies have taken their cue from the Ultimates, where's his just this super-professional company man, i.e. a much more boring and generic action movie hero.

To be fair, Hawkeye spent most of The Avengers under Loki's control, and only regained his mind just in time for the all-action finale where there wasn't really much time to dig into his backstory. From what I've read about Age of Ultron so far, it looks like Whedon plans to put more of a focus on the characters that don't have their own movies, so we may yet find out that there's more to Hawkeye than we say in The Avengers (Pizza Dog cameo ftw!)

Renner seems like a pretty boring dude tbh

Yeah, I guess it's still possible to make Hawkeye interesting, but given that he's so obviously based on the Ultimates version and not the main Marvel universe one, I'm not so sure it'll actually happen. I doubt he'll be revealed to be a ex-carny or anything like that...

And I'm not saying the movie characters need to be exactly like their comic counterparts, just that most of the changes they've done have made them more generic and boring than in the comics. (Except for Tony Stark, but that's mostly due to Robert Downey Jr.'s performance.)

It's partly that paradox I pointed out: they've got decades of mythology to juggle and fans to appease, but also, like, the rest of the living world to appeal to, so there's a limit to how deep these movies can go.

Frankly, unless it's happened, I'm surprised there hasn't been a must-read fill-in-the-gaps comic book tie-in with the movies. If not, seems like a missed opportunity to drag people over or back over to the books.

Are they still doing comic book adaptations of comic book movies?

Don't miss this Avengers Assemble novelisation, which apparently stars "Nick Furry".

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13615968-avengers

TS: X-Men: Days of Future Past Quicksilver (top) vs. Agengers: Age of Ultron Quicksilver (bottom)

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--aevHfQoV--/c_fit,fl_progressive,w_636/md4j6rcceqfqsdhqslnj.jpg

http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/headlines/2014/03/elizabeth-olsen-aaron-taylor-johnson-more-action-packed-avengers-2-pics.jpg

Tuomas complaining about that Scarlet Witch costume in 3, 2...

Frankly, unless it's happened, I'm surprised there hasn't been a must-read fill-in-the-gaps comic book tie-in with the movies.

How can this surprise you after the last 13-odd years of Marvel tying in their publishing program with film releases

Because I don't read comic books anymore? And, from that vantage, I haven't felt any compulsion to check? I mean, I don't watch Agents of SHIELD, either, but I know the last ep tied in directly to Captain America 2. I realize the comics and movies sort of occupy the same plane, as it were, but my surprise is that, in the credits to Iron Man 3 or Avengers or Thor 2 or something - even a press release - there's not a direct, well, directive to pick up the current comic. Unless it's just implicit. But if they announced issues such and such of whatever title lay some groundwork for Avengers 2, wouldn't they get a reader bump?

Then again, Agents of SHIELD tie-in to Cap'n was apparently the show's ratings low.

Marvel puts out movie tie-in comics (and, yeah, there have been some fill-in-the-gaps books to go along with the straight adaptations), but they're generally shitty when it comes to synergy beyond that. Most recent case in point: a bunch of the Guardians of the Galaxy trades most pertinent to the upcoming movie are currently out of print and super expensive to acquire.

they did come up with "Nicholas Fury Jr."

I think there's a good chance of Guardians of the Galaxy being a relative flop, which will put an end to any idea of the cosmic/weird side of Marvel in favor of more mainstream/actiony stuff. That's just the way it goes with needing to appeal to an audience that mostly doesn't read comics.

Saw a trailer for the new Spidey last night, it looks absolutely terrible - whatever the MCU flaws, they're just so much better than the Spider-Man or X-Men movie universes.

xpost Yeah, they do kinda goofy and perfunctory stuff, like putting the X-Men in black leather when the first movie came out and revamping Spider-Man to give him organic jizz web shooters. I guess Coulson is part of the MU proper now? That's something.

The new Spider-Man action scenes still look like videogame cut scenes, which is pretty ridic for a blockbuster in 2014.

smash cut to Transformers: Grimlock Edition making crazy money

We got Dr. Strange movie: http://www.deadline.com/2014/06/marvel-doctor-strange-movie-scott-derrickson-sinister/

(Way too early for a dedicated thread, imo.)

Clooney or gtfo

My wife begs to differ: "Viggo or gtfo."

Elias Koteas, assuming he doesn't look weird with hair

Corbin Bernsen

oh that's good

The new Spider-Man action scenes still look like videogame cut scenes, which is pretty ridic for a blockbuster in 2014.
--Kiarostami bag (milo z)

That's why they got banished to canada

The Universe is not kind, it will be Patrick Dempsey.

rumour is Jared Leto. Ugh

Figured this was coming soon with that random shout-out in Winter Soldier

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/doctor-who-peter-capaldi-costume.jpg

Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk in the Daredevil series.

(announced by Marvel, that is)

weird, who's dd?

Some guy named Charlie Cox.

nice casting of VDO

Can't see the DD series being much cop.

Has there been a half-decent live action superhero show since Batman?

Well THERE'S your info dump:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BtVzZ-5IQAAFf8p.png

December 2, 2019

DOCTOR STRANGE: WAR WAR

wowzers

very excited for world war hulk and the inhumans. they should do planet hulk lead-in somehow maybe on tv

May 3, 2020

ANT-MAN: LITTLE DUDE, BIG WAR

this is never going to end is it

They'll cycle through and then...reboot!

I guess RDJ said "Eh, just gimme one more Avengers movie, I need to take a nap."

has this been confirmed anywhere aside from twitpic?

awful optimistic of them to assume phrases like WORLD WAR and CIVIL WAR won't be gauche in 2018

xpost -- Not really. But if you're going to release a fake, now's the time.

Didn't that come out months ago, though?

Wouldn't be surprised at all!

the dates have but they've announced no titles beyond dr strange

God I hope the world ends before then.

It's totally fake. Everyone knows Civil War comes before Fallen Son.

WOW, THE INHUMANS! A man who can't talk lest he destroy the world and a woman with magic mutant hair iirc. Maybe some kind of underwater green guy?

the big dog yo

Would definitely watch over Flash vs Green Lantern.

and miss this sort of trenchant social commentary?
http://www.wordofthenerdonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Green-Lantern-Green-Arrow.jpg

Or maybe the next one will be about Mosaic and we'll get commentary like this.

http://i.imgur.com/9mRyZys.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/DcLq1RG.jpg

God comic art was ugly in the early 90s.

Justin Theroux as Dr Strange, maybe?

(I'm having a difficult time thinking of actors with the right Look who are tall enough)

Maybe Ty Burrell...?

itt DJP talks to himself about Marvel movies

Cumerbatch as Strange?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Stan_Lee_1975_cropped.jpg
He's got the hair colouring for it already

[sorry for the huge]

how about Steve Strange?

I hope they let the alliteration rip in the Dr Strange movie

putting in my vote for david tennant as strange

great idea, plus he'd probably do it

CLOONEY as Doc Strange or gtfo

good in a pencil mustache, not a doctor in real life but used to play one on TV

they'll shoot for Clooney and end up with Jack from Lost

While George Clooney is the ideal in a lot of ways he's also 53

Strange is not a young character, he's got grey hair etc

Downey Jr is 49

yeah and he's made four movies as iron man, not zero

dr. strange 1 doesn't come out until 2016

also disney probably doesn't want an actor who will be expensive from the word go

from the movie stars in split-shots with a drawing when you gis "dr. strange" honestly i might expect someone like joseph fiennes

i predict a shia

rooting for nick offerman tho

chris pratt can take him to the gym

you're on the right track but insiders are already whispering that this will be a breakout role for aziz ansari

george clooney as dr strange is inspired

http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/movie_news/2014/07/joaquin_phoenix_in_talks_to_play_marvels_doctor_strange

clooney's name's been thrown around for years. whenever a part like this gets a lot of casting speculation from fanboys it seems like it always ends up going to a relative unknown so

xp lol

joaquin is pretty believable, respected, known but not likely to cost a ton upfront

http://img.moviepilot.com/assets/tarantulaV2/embedded_images/1380111716_her3.jpg

has rocked stache to acclaim

regretfully won't be set in 1967

lol

it won't be him, he doesn't want to do interviews

I vote for Timothy Olyphant

Michael Shannon.

He can continue his villain streak as Dormammu

it's fun reading the comments to every article about this and seeing everyone suggest every single white dude who's ever had a goatee

http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2013/10/guyfieri.jpg

lol

man if they hadn't already used idris elba in thor...

thinking of what jared leto would be like is seriously cracking me up

elba's already been campaigning for black panther right? not like it'd be too out there, there'd just be a scene where hemsworth was like "hm you look like someone i know *audience laughter*"

i don't like actors being more than one superhero

i don't like there being so few black actors in the major motion picture sphere that actors doubling up on roles in the same universe seems normal

Craig Robinson as Luke Cage

Michael Jai White as Luke Cage

Terry Crews as Luke Cage

Andre 3000 as Black Goliath

Maclolm Jamal Warner as Bishop

They already had a Bishop- he didn't have a single line of dialogue.

is michael b jordan a marvel superhero yet?

johnny storm

cool, that's good casting

yeah that's from that fantastic four that's already announced it plans to have nothing to do w/ the comics

director from Chronicle is doing it too, actually have my hopes up for that one

considering Trank is doing it i'm not worried at all it'll get the comic book stuff done, Chronicle was basically an X-Men movie

gotg 2 happening w/gunn returning

Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Garden of the Gods

*war garden

Savage Garden

Secret of the Lost Garden

http://i.imgur.com/u47G52O.jpg

who's the guy floating in the back?

vision

cool. did not now he was in this film. can't wait to see him cry.

when did hawkeye swell to hulk-like proportions?

huh. imdb says bettany will be playing vision as well as voicing jarvis. what do you know.

xpost trick of perspective. that's actually a life-size Renner

oh heh never noticed before but i guess if movie wolverine can be 6ft movie hawkeye can be a lefty

xpost trick of perspective. that's actually a life-size Renner

huh. imdb says bettany will be playing vision as well as voicing jarvis

Pym already got his own promo poster this weekend:

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2014/07/23/Ant-Man-Comic-Con_612x942.jpg

Michael douglas you say. At least that will spare him the indignity of contorting into some costume.

aside from gotg 2 release date (2017) nothing new outside ant-man and avengers. figured they might make some announcements.

also if they're really doing one sequel a year does that push thor 3 all the way back to 2018? tom hiddleston won't even be attractive anymore

On the latest Schmoes Know Podcast, our good friend- and overall reliable source- Devin Faraci made an interesting revelation about the direction that Marvel Studios is heading in. After discussing how the old script that Marvel had been tossing around for Doctor Strange has now ended up in the recycle bin, he drops this tidbit:

"Marvel's new thing is no more origin stories. So Doctor Strange's movie no longer has an origin. It begins in media res [literary term for "in the midst of things"]. It's got Doctor Strange all ready established as The Sorcerer Supreme. It's a totally new script [...] without any of the previous stuff. They're not even touching the previous script."

hallelujah

[literary term for "in the midst of things"]

finally!

i would be cool with them doing short origin story bumpers at the start of each marvel movie for the NEXT marvel movie, a'la pixar's preshow shorts.

but yeah, fuck wasting the first half of your movie with an origin story that was kinda lame when it was penned sixty years ago and that 75% your audience already knows anyway

OTM. The first few movies can be seen as an origin story for the whole milieu and let's get on with it from there.

skipping the origin story allows writers to backfill as necessary, which I would think is liberating.

fuck wasting the first half of your movie with an origin story that was kinda lame when it was penned sixty years ago and that 75% your audience already knows anyway

thing is, any character they launch now will NOT be familiar to 75% of your audience if your audience is a blockbuster one. I can see wanting to get away from movies where the climax of the film is "and that's how...he became...THE SUB-MARINER!" but I hope they find a middle-ground between that and assuming we don't need a little time to acclimate to a dude in a speedo with wings on his feet.

we still need to know why we should care about the character beyond the fact that they've been in the presence of nerds for decades, and origin stories are usually the easiest way to express that

i'm seeing guardians tonight so will be able to answer this question myself soon but didn't they just throw the characters in with like five minutes of exposition? And that's one where you can assume 95% of the audience DOESN'T know who these guys are.

no guardians is an origin story fo sho

each individual character gets a little exposition at the beginning, but the story is about their gradual transformation into a team

yeah, that's what I mean by "origin story": how they became who they are. Team dynamics tend to make good movies. But origin stories that stick to canon usually suck because this stuff was written by madmen on a deadline in 1953; nobody wants to hear about spiderman's daddy issues. if the origin story is a freshly rewritten take on the character (Thor did this pretty well i thought) then fine. Otherwise, I'd prefer we start with issue #75 and up plz

people loved spider-man's origin story the first time. it was huge. they just didn't need it again in the fourth spidey movie in a decade.

if dr. strange will already be sorcerer supreme at the beginning of the movie, they'll probably have an audience surrogate (maybe a laaady) going "wtf magic?" instead of strange himself

so it will really be the "origin story" of his assistant or girlfriend.

the smart thing about taking that road would be it allows for them to do a flashback "strange rising" prequel...and you knoooow they love prequels

STRANGE BINDS SLIMER IN THE CRIMSON BANDS OF CYTTORAK.
Bystander: "How the hell did you do that?"
Dr. Strange: "It's a long story."
Bystander: "Hell with that, I'll miss my train."
Dr. Strange: "That's cool, I wasn't offering to tell it...UNLESS MY OPENING WEEKEND BLOWS THE FUCK UP."

xps

Hellboy did a pretty great job with this. 5 minutes - oh, he's a demon from hell and we'll figure out the rest later - Cut to 80 years into the future!

That said I agree that origin stories can be great if done right, the ones that are annoying are where we have to keep seeing them (new Spider-Man, new Fantastic Four again soon) or the ones that are just terrible generic-feeling retreads (Green Lantern, which should have easily avoided this problem).

x-men did the "non-origin origin story" structure well, with rogue as the audience surrogate needing to be caught up while cyclops and storm were already cyclops and storm

xpost hellboy had that geeky fbi agent (and actually didn't do so great)

the most non-origin story, audience-surrogate-free superhero movie i can think of is watchmen, which tanked

The new Spidey films totally should've just been sequels with a different actor.

I dunno if the same is true for the new FF, not sure enough people saw the first one to not have a retread, and they didn't do it particularly well. They could have the whole thing over with in the first 15 mins though.

I dug how they handled it in The Incredible Hulk. All of the origin rehash was handled in brief snippets during the opening credits.

well that was a sorta-sequel anyway

The Hulk's origin is extremely straightforward.

No more so than most of the other superheroes who don't really require a cinematic origin story. Unless WB is doing a Hawkman movie, I think we can generally leave it out.

Burton's Batman only spent about two minutes on the origin iirc.

and still managed to totally fuck it up

still nerdgaging over the Joker killed the Waynes thing

The upcoming Venom Carnage film has the unenviable task of presenting the origin stories of both Venom and Carnage in addition to presumably explaining how they became a single entity with an unwieldy name.

that will be covered in the Sinister Six film, which will consist entirely of origin stories for the titular villains

xpost hellboy had that geeky fbi agent (and actually didn't do so great)

Burton's Batman did have very little origin story but that is a case where between the tv shows animated and not etc etc you can honestly say the global audience is familiar with his basic steez. but you can't say that about any marvel property they might kick up AFTER ant-man.

Batman Begins on the other hand is almost all origin story and is probably my favourite Batman movie.

Though I guess it covers a portion of his life that isn't very culturally ubiquitous.

The upcoming Venom Carnage film has the unenviable task of presenting the origin stories of both Venom and Carnage in addition to presumably explaining how they became a single entity with an unwieldy name.

i kind of can't believe venom carnage is actually going to happen, at least in its current form. of the three spideyless spiderverse movies planned, only sinister six even has a set release date. unless the buzz on that improves, i can't believe sony would just blaze into "two gooey psychos dressed like spider-man go to white castle." they've already amended their spideyverse fantasies once, can see it happening again

but then again sinister six seems like such a wtf they already look like wile e coyote standing over a ravine confused to me

i still don't get how they're doing a Sinister Six movie without Spider-Man in it

like, they realized from the asm2 numbers that spidey's suffering some audience burn-out, but they still think movies about his supporting cast are going to get people MORE into regular spidey movies?

maybe they think sinister six sounds like fast five which sounds like a franchise re-energizer?

But the Fast series never needed a re-energizer, even the third one that didn't have the original stars made a crapton of money

I'm gonna start presuming that all comic book movies will be titled Venom Carnage from now on unless i'm explicitly told otherwise

In related news, did you hear about the John Carter spin-off Disney is working on called Martians?

But the Fast series never needed a re-energizer, even the third one that didn't have the original stars made a crapton of money

fast five did twice as well as fast 4, you can play semantics but fast five did take things up a big notch

and asm2 still made a ton of money, it just didn't expand upon the market of the reboot like they hoped

some marvel origin stories are good! and i like that the screenwriters have an opportunity to take the bizarre/corny ones and present/form them better. with liberties.

but i can definitely see how the strange origin would be done with as little origin as possible.

er *strange movie

my.. hands.. my.. HANDS *falls to his knees, gazes up into the starlit sky*

Yeah, Strange's is definitely one of the least necessary origin stories. In a way, our encroaching era of private space flights is a perfect time to zip right through an updated version of the FF's origin with a minimum of logistical finagling.

word is they're doing something different with the FF's origin anyway

So they're going to be alien ninja turtles, then.

Did they actually go ahead with that?

Nah, they eventually realized that Bay's involvement was enough of a slap in the face for anyone who cared.

I would watch a Strange Hamm:
http://blog.sfgate.com/dailydish/2014/08/25/jon-hamm-dismisses-doctor-strange-rumors/

Jack Huston >>>>

Good shout.

all over the nerdsphere today

Pedro Pascal ftw

Nah, he's a bit too straighforwardly suave (though I've only seen him in GoT, so what do I know).

joaquin i guess

i'm okay with that

Think I would've preferred Huston, but sure he'll do a fine job.

Jemaine Clement for Dr Strange

also, Wes Anderson to direct The Inhumans

seriously?

never mind, wasn't thinking

http://i11.tinypic.com/53ucxtl.gif

I was being serious

Sorry, Tombot, I believe you -- I just thought it was funny that forks judo-threw himself and that was the first thing that came to mind.

Cumerbatch as Strange?

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Friday, 25 July 2014 13:47 (3 months ago)

Called it (possibly)

http://deadline.com/2014/10/benedict-cumberbatch-doctor-strange-movie-cast-862815/

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarf

Not interested

Hey, at least it wasn't Jared Leto

indeed, could have been worse

indeed there is literally one human being alive who would be worse for the part i guess i should be thankful

god i'm gonna have to look at his alien face all throughout avengers 5 aren't i

What's wrong with Cumberbatch?

a bunch of ppl here just hate him for some reason

he's a UK celebrity that americans know about

He makes blockbuster films easier to watch for me. Loved the faces he made in Star Trek.

I don't have a beef with him, but there is a bit of overexposure. I think if anything he's a bit too on-the-nose as it were. Of all the marvel flicks this is the one I'm most interested in because it has the potential to be a bit different, so the writer/director stands to be more of a dealbreaker than the star.

you know they've already chosen the writer and director, right?

can't wait to see what the director of beloved keanu reeves vehicle the day 'the earth stood still' and the writer of widely-acclaimed jason momoa showcase 'conan the barbarian' will conjure up

Writer: Lena Dunham
Director: Brett Ratner

would watch

It's just gonna be called Strange and the only "minority" on it will be a white guy playing Wong.

sigh

yeah i'm unenthusiastic about cumberbatch, but its the creative team that seems like the bigger hurdle to awesome

Jon Spaits, of pre-Lindelof Prometheus "fame", is actually doing the script now

i just don't see what derrickson brings to the table other than the willingness to turn lights off before filming

He did Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so at least he some experience with (box office) successful horror

Writer: Kirk Cameron
Director: PT Anderson (Wong will be played by Maya Rudolph)

would also watch

did you see sinister or emily rose? some decent boos at best but again, mostly a lot of characters making bad choices in dark rooms. during the family dinners in sinister you couldn't even see the walls behind them.

As long as it doesn't veer toward some Goyer style Marvel Knights bullshit it should be ok. I guess my expectations are centered around huge capes, huger collars, a Jeremy Blake approach to color, big budget abstractions and a proper flaming head. So maybe I care about vision over what the actual story is.

aside from faith in marvel's corporate overlords, i don't see reason to believe this dr strange movie will be better than that constantine movie a decade ago

I want late 90s Wong Kar-Wai's Dr. Strange.

i'd be fine if it were at the same level as Constantine - super stylish, just enough traces of a plot

5 minutes on the origin, but i don't think we'll be that lucky

(yeah tbf i don't recall hating constantine - it's just that a movie as good as constantine would be reallll mediocre for marvel and not hard for them to top with a more inspired director)

Deal's not set in stone, not too late for La Beouf Strange

word is they're skipping the origin in dr strange and starting with him as an established character.

Deal's not set in stone, not too late for La Beouf Strange

this is a legitimately terrifying idea

I wonder if they didn't go with keanu because reuniting the star of constantine with the guy who directed him in The Day The Earth Stood Still couldn't possibly excite anyone, while cumbybum has some nerd love. he's also probably still cheap.

i dont' think marvel will ever cast someone who can ask for a cut of the gross before the sequel

surely RDJ could have?

he did. and now that marvel is an established independent brand, no one else will ever again

(RIP my dreams of clooney as strange)

I was about to comment on the trend of casting nobodies re: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and then realized that they're being played by the kid from Kick-Ass (possibly the most anonymous person to ever be in a leading role since Josh Hartnett) and Elizabeth Olsen (obligatory indie darling)

so, good job on casting people who come across as nobodies? *shrug*

(RIP my dreams of clooney as strange)

^^^

disney/marvel's post-rdj policy is "yes you're not getting large slice of this pie, but if you weren't in avengers you wouldn't get to make lucy so it's worth it" and if they really really really want you in "Name Of Your Character 2" they'll cut you in

so far it's worked well in that they've cast quality actors without a lot of insta-name recognition and directors who really want to prove they can blockbuster (though the edgar wright and patty jenkins kerfluffles suggest not everyone wants a blockbuster THAT bad). i'm still excited for ant-man because the visual aesthetic was already defined by edgar wright before it was handed over to peyton reed, who i know can competently film actors being charming (and as proven by the russo bros in cap 2, that's all you need once the character's action aesthetic is figured out). but derrickson feels real B in comparison to his predecessors imo.

The more I think about it, the more I have big misgivings about a Dr. Strange movie at all, no matter who's writing, directing or starring. I think the character and his wacky mystic arts adventures would be best served by unnerving amounts of stillness and quiet to go with the freaky Ditko visuals, and Marvel movies arent about stillness and quiet. A Dr. Strange movie as loud and explodey as the Avengers and Guardians movies gives me The Fear.

Dr Strange done as found-footage horror film

every marvel character needs a) the emo factor and b) the cool shit they do in action scenes. i'm sure benedict can handle the emo factor but they're going to have to figure out a way for his power to look more interesting than a laser blast from his hand that we're told is a magic laser blast.

xp -- that would be awesome! I say that as someone who's never seen a found-footage horror film.

I haven't seen most of these films but I've always had a feeling that all superhero films have a mandatory love (or lust) interest somewhere, and it often makes an awkward fit.

well the good news is that marvel's been pretty good at tapping into why the character's drama and fighting style has sold comics for decades and presenting it cinematically (for comparison, i dunno if anyone involved with green lantern had a clue why he's endured). problem is that we're now getting to B & C level characters who haven't really sold comics for decades with their drama and fighting style. GOTG proved marvel can find and pull out unproven potential but where a shitty superman movie will still make a couple hundred million, a shitty dr strange movie probably wont.

at its best the love/lust interest humanizes the character but at its worst it's just tacked on proof that they're straight

I think the only love/lust interest in the Marvel movies so far has been Thor/Jane. I don't count Tony/Pepper flirting.

uh tony and pepper are the deepest love interests IN the marvel cinematic universe. they're practically a married couple.

unless you're defining "love/lust interest" as something inherently negligible

My impression was always that they were attracted to each other, enjoyed the flirting, but ultimately both chose to avoid a luv'n'sex relationship. I just asked my wife and her impression was that they did have a romantic relationship, more implied than explicit.

At this point, I think any Marvel movie would make at least a couple hundred million, unless it's completely awful. So many people seem aware of their track-record. Like, the trailer will still have 'The studio that brought you Avengers, Cap 2 and GotG', which is pretty good.

a "love interest" isn't defined by the exchange of fluids. there's obviously a deep emotional bond between tony and pepper that's also sexually charged and a source for drama in the film. whether they've done the deed is superfluous - she's his primary love/lust interest

obv marvel has a great rep and deservedly so, but whether they can get a golden egg from a true turkey of a film has yet to be tested

make hugh jackman strange and just pretend wolverine doesn't exist

hugh jackman's already strange

Guardians of the Galaxy - directed by James Gunn of all people - probably has them thinking they can pull off anything right now
Winter Soldier was directed by the guys who brought us fucking You Me and Dupree, Picking cheaper talent hasn't hurt Marvel, yet

xp By Avengers it seemed like Tony/Pepper were explicitly a thing - iirc that's why he joins the mission at her "urging"

hugh jackman is strange when you're a stranger

I mean even down to having Wolerine film with him just thinking about Jean Grey. I don think I've ever seen a superhero film without something of that sort.

Wondering if they'll bother in a Wonder Woman film because I gather people tend to hate her boyfriend.

yeah i've acknowledged they're going for cheaper talent (specifically mentioned the russos re cap 2, that by the sequel the hundreds of CGI wranglers at marvel handle the action scenes and you just need someone who can keep actors interesting) - but gunn was a fanboy favorite known for inspiration and invention (the script that got him into hollywood was The Specials, about an absurd superhero team). derrickson makes murky hit-and-miss ghost movies, and his one big budget flick was a huge dud.

http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/we-live-blog-all-the-details-of-marvels-special-hollywood-event

So far, Cap 3 will be called Captain America: Serpent Society, and Thor 3 is Thor: Ragnarok. Yay?

at its worst it's just tacked on proof that they're straight

Not sure what you're implying about Doctor Stephen ~Strange~ who lives in the West Village with his exotic valet in a house full of exotic objets and had ~adventures~ without ever stepping out the front door.

He has a girlfriend Clea she drops by sometimes.

I think the character and his wacky mystic arts adventures would be best served by unnerving amounts of stillness and quiet to go with the freaky Ditko visuals...

This is v otm and I don't know if marvel's listening but imo their implied choice of which genre to situate this one in offers some cause for hope.

Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Inhumans are go.

Avengers: Infinity War. Part one in 2018, two in 2019. So many movies.

Get Linklater to do Dr Strange Waking Life style.

sounds like the civil war gossip is all for naught - i wondered how they'd possibly fit that in AND the inevitable guardians/avengers team-up

My impression was always that they were attracted to each other, enjoyed the flirting, but ultimately both chose to avoid a luv'n'sex relationship. I just asked my wife and her impression was that they did have a romantic relationship, more implied than explicit.

Tony and Pepper are dating by the beginning of The Avengers.

Sorry, it was a fakeout. Cap 3 is Captain America: Civil War.

well whaddya know, sony may still get spidey up in there

also, given Wolverine's comic book history/representation, any movie that doesn't have him spending half of it pining over an old lover (whether it be Jean, Mariko, Silver Fox, or whomever) doesn't understand the character

so in order (after avengers 2 and ant-man in 2015)

May 2016: Captain America - Civil War
November 2016: Dr Strange
May 2017: Guardians Of The Galaxy 2
July 2017: Thor - Ragnarok
November 2017: Black Panther
May 2018: Avengers - Infinity War Part 1
July 2018: Captain Marvel
November 2018: The Inhumans
May 2019: Avengers - Infinity War Part 2

okay they're going pretty balls-out here

Jean's not even a plot-relevant character in The Wolverine though - you can't say that for Silver Fox in Origins or Jean in X2. His haunting is from an in-universe decade past! That is pretty out of the ordinary for most action movies, let alone superhero movies

so leaving out all the spidey business, which is the least defined and most likely to be nuked anyway

Feb 2016: Deadpool
March 2016: BatSupes: Justice A-Comin'
May 2016: Captain America - Civil War
MAy 2016: X-Men Apocalypse
August 2016: Suicide Squad
November 2016: Dr Strange
march 2017: Wolverine II(I)
May 2017: Guardians Of The Galaxy 2
June 2017: Wonder Woman
July 2017: Fantastic Four 2
July 2017: Thor - Ragnarok
November 2017: Black Panther
November 2017: Justice League Part 1
March 2018: The Flash
May 2018: Avengers - Infinity War Part 1
July 2018: Captain Marvel
July 2018: Aquaman
November 2018: The Inhumans
April 2019: Shazam
May 2019: Avengers - Infinity War Part 2
June 2019: Justice League 2

With Cyborg and Green Lantern ringing in the next decade

plus there's turtles and jedis and hogwarts alumni and legos and shit

universal also believes they're brewing a "monsterverse"

i would totally be down with a retconning/rethinking of stephen strange as a gay character; the character's a womanizer, just genderflip it
hell, get the guy from How To Get Away with Murder; he's got the right look.
http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/450145620-actor-jack-falahee-of-how-to-get-away-with-gettyimages.jpg%3Fv%3D1%26c%3DIWSAsset%26k%3D2%26d%3DGkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QSYRROvz9bDySMiO3BIMOvhPRLqVwzFNLIIMfwnaqyUH

presumably fox won't let 2018-2019 go without gambit and/or another x-movie as well

xp http://static.episode39.it/artist/47433.jpg%3Ft%3D1410790107

here? http://www.google.com/url%3Fsa%3Di%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dimages%26cd%3D%26cad%3Drja%26uact%3D8%26ved%3D0CAcQjRw%26url%3Dhttp%3A//www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jack_falahee/%26ei%3DLOdPVJfiIaXIsASs8YLQBA%26psig%3DAFQjCNHg121oDH3HaIHIcjzaB4Rh7HVQGg%26ust%3D1414609008526325

i give up, gis "jack falahee"

I'd be very surprised if they did Shazam even halfway right. He's one of the most notorious characters for being done badly.

Wondering if that line-up (from all film studios) is a big risk and if they have a plan B? What will they do if the trend loses a large part of its audience?

judging from what happened with sony after amazing spider-man 2 it's clear they can curb things fairly quickly, and only fox has to worry about losing rights if they don't produce - if dc or marvel scales back they only lose face.

it's not the first time a genre's been inescapable at the box office

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Western_films_1950%E2%80%9354

who knows maybe in the 2020s the "singing superhero" movie will become a thing

I will be first in line for a Dazzler movie

xpost -- Well then, no WONDER they cast Downey.

https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_liaarlupC91qgzg6eo1_500.gif

Lila Cheney cameo in GOTG2 sets up the musical onslaught

btw "Musical Onslaught" is the Big Bad of these movies

just scrolling down "1950" in that wiki link puts all this crap into context

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt52nJWik4A

I'm a little bit worried but I'm glad I'm not a true cineaste because this would drive me nuts. Superheroes have dominated comics for a very long time and the grip has been loosening slowly, maybe only to fasten stronger on films and videogames.

My favourite non-reprint superhero thing Marvel did in the last four decades is Marvel Vs Capcom 1-2. Doubt they'll ever top that insane fun.

whatever

I will be first in line for a Dazzler movie

posts you know are DJP before you even see the sig

This commentary is rightfully classic in videogame fandom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZUMjoxfZA

xpost have there been any genuinely excellent superhero games other than the capcom series (starting with Children of the Atom I guess)...

maybe Arkham?

dave axelrod is on that spider man album!

pringles

The Punisher scrolling beatemup is kind of a classic. Some of the PlayStation 2 Spiderman games were very well received. Hulk: Ultimate Destruction gave players the full power they craved but some say it got boring quickly.

It did, but it was still pretty solid, like you the Spider-Man (2) game you mentioned
Arkham series really is the tops though

Comix Zone wasn't based on any real comic but it's great.

the marvel lego and ultimate alliances franchises are well liked and puzzlequest is satan
but yeah, arkham

Pretty sure I read something about how Marvel plans to step up the QC on their movie tie-in videogames so that they're games that people actually enjoy playing rather than wholly perfunctory pieces of crap.

I'm kind of surprised by how excited I am at the prospect of a Captain Marvel movie.

WB has been pretty lucky with both Rocksteady (Arkham series) and Netherrealm (Injustice: Gods Among Us), which btw is wonderful fan service that's actually a pretty good video game
I think since they've already done this with Marvel Studios and films, they should invest in their own developers like WB has

thing about that slurry of westerns is the context of a lot more studio movies, espesh the Bs which were torrential and cheap and make up most of that list; the major studios were not spending entire GDPs on terrifyingly marginal investments in horses.

http://postimg.org/image/61l5d7n2x/

whoops forget it

I'm kind of surprised by how excited I am at the prospect of a Captain Marvel movie.

― kissaroo and Tyler, too (DJP), Tuesday, October 28, 2014 3:31 PM (57 minutes ago)

Ditto, CM and Black Panther are the two I'm most excited about now.

loving that captain marvel comes out a year before the delayed shazam now

remember when ppl itt were discussing whether or not tony and pepper were in a romantic relationship

that was funny

sucks global warming's gonna take us all before we get to see black panther or cpt marvel

promises, promises

so t'challa's gonna be costume in civil war and it sounds like he's gonna be taking spidey's place

apparently there was a "sketch" w/rdj and evans fighting and chadbo (taking credit for that now do not forget) caught in the middle and feige said that it was meant to "signify" what happens in the movie, which is good news bc yay black panther and also it'd be so ridiculous if they managed to cram spidey into this universe

seems a little soon for civil war but w/e it will probably be some riff on the theme

As long as I don't have to watch Agents of SHIELD for any of this to make sense, I'm down with whatever.

welp, i woulda thought this was fan built until the crowd goes nuts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv2NRpG76Pg

a teaser trailer for a movie four years away from playing in theatres has got to be some kind of record, right?

and with the movie that precedes it in the series not yet having reached cinemas itself!

Yeah, I think even LOTR / The Phantom Menace were only one or two years behind. But didn't look as fan-made of course.

Who the fuck cheers at the cinema? And cheering a fucking trailer for a film years away!!!!!! Gross.

It was at that rollout event right? That makes a bit more sense

enthusiasm is fucking revolting. scum.

damn right

I wonder if Marvel are even a little bit glad that they don't own the rights to all the characters - an imposed limit on the cinematic universe might make the whole thing more managable?

the current marvel CEO definitely doesn't see a silver lining - they're killing off the fantastic four in the books and chris claremont says they won't create any more x-men characters because the cinematic rights immediately go to fox (tangentially, i'm curious how sony's rights are defined for the "spideyverse" - are characters introduced in spider-man comics inherently theirs? is that why they're plausibly prepping Black Cat?). with movies making so much more than the comics, this guy sees them as giving money away.

look at what marvel is doing with daredevil (initially a fox film property) on netflix - if they got the rights back to spidey or the x-men, they don't necessarily have to have them shaking hands with iron man. at least not right away.

where fox feels the urge to clutter the remainder of this decade with spidey ephemera, marvel could let the franchise take a nap til 2021 and still make hay.

gah sony i mean

Is there anything to stop Fox creating their own mutant characters for the X-Men movies?

they're definitely free to change qualities (i.e. the line-up in First Class), but with so many mutants at their disposal i don't know why they'd bother inventing one with no name recognition whatsoever

where is Dazzler movie

they could get LiLo for pennies

judging by the two quicksilvers, i'm guessing most of these rights agreements name a few specific characters and then "anybody else primarily associated with these titles." so while wolverine probably can't dance through an avengers movie, quicksilver can as long as they call him a "miracle" instead of a "mutant" and he never refers to his dear ol' daddy magneto

Odds are the Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch we're going to see in the Avengers movies will be Inhumans (they're already linked anyway what with Quicksilver's ex and daughter in the comics being Inhumans so the transition isn't that jarring)

yeah there's been a lot of buzz about how the inhumans give marvel that ability to introduce people born with superpowers without fox's ears burning

are inhumans actually born w/ superpowers or do they need to use those crystals?

i think the idea is that the kree has been funking around with our genes like they did with the inhumans and that's why some one-off character on agents of shield has super-strength or whatever

feige (before they announced the inhumans) has denied any connection between the "miracles" and the inhumans but why would he come forward and say "yes, this is how we're going to sneak mutants into our movies five years from now"

They're born with latent powers that are unlocked by exposure to the Terrigen Mists. If they're never exposed, they never exhibit powers.

xp: The Kree fucking around with human DNA is what created The Inhumans so I don't think there's a distinction here. In the comics, they've recently introduced the idea that a group of Inhumans split off centuries ago and mingled with regular humans before exposing themselves to the Mists, strewing Inhuman DNA throughout the population that was undetected until Black Bolt sets off a Terrigen bomb over NYC during a showdown with Thanos, creating a whole new set of Inhumans that didn't grow up in Inhuman society and are basically mutants by another name.

yeah honestly all i know about the inhumans is secondhand through blogs and that black bolt is on lego marvel

so is that how they got around wanda's "no more mutants," or did they reverse that in a different way?

My favourite Inhumans triva fact is that Black Bolt's 'real' name is Blackagar Boltagon

lolll

beyond quicksilver and scarlet witch were any other x-characters made avengers before 2000? adding rogue to Ultimate Funky Fresh Avengers in 2010 presumably doesn't affect the Fox contract, but are there any other characters where both companies could claim equal ownership film-wise?

Ultimate Funky Fresh Avengers

Is this a real thing?

according to wikipedia, she was a "Marvel NOW! recruit" in 2012 but i don't know what that means

until i'm driven to check out a highly acclaimed trade paperback new superhero comics exist solely to make me lol at descriptions on wikipedia

Black Bolt's 'real' name is Blackagar Boltagon

ahahahahahahaha

I hope they cast Captaina Marvelini soon

beyond quicksilver and scarlet witch were any other x-characters made avengers before 2000?

Beast has been a member since the '70s

Rogue and Havok was on Uncanny Avengers. Storm was on Avengers for a minute. Don't think any of them would be ok for Whedon to use. The 'no more mutants' was reversed by... Hm, was it the Phoenix? The Phoenix definitely helped.

the reason i said "before 2000" is because obv anybody who was in an x-movie before they were an avenger in the comics would be ripe for litigation if they showed up in an avengers movie

Firestar floats back and forth between the Avengers and X worlds and had Avenger status as of 1998.

Beast is the only other X-person who is pre-2000; Wolverine, Storm, Havok, Rogue, Sunfire, Cannonball and Sunspot are all post-2005.

I'm hopeful but doubtful that Wundagore and Bova the cow-nanny will come into play at some point.

Are they still calling Namor a mutant? They seem to go back and forth on that.

still so disappointed to learn universal gave up the namor rights, picturing jack donaghy pushing the "namorverse" was too beautiful

though universal's "monsterverse" dreams are cute too

Namor's a mutant but I don't really consider him to be an X-character, despite being a cornerstone of the books for several years during Utopia.

he also predates the x-men by almost 30 years

That doesn't mean Fox wouldn't try to claim him as a mutant. My understanding is the deals signed in the 90s for the X-verse, Spidey and Fantastic Four are incredibly broad.

if universal had the namor rights i can't imagine the language says they'd revert to fox instead of marvel

i have no doubt they're broad in terms of "anybody who showed up initially in these comics gets to be in the movies," which means sony has every spidey-born villain and fox has a kajillion mutants" but i doubt they get previously established characters who high fived spidey or wolverine

doesn't see a silver lining - they're killing off the fantastic four in the books

Marvel's two biggest pushes in 2014 have been relaunching Spidey and killing Wolverine. Third biggest is an Avengers/X-Men crossover. Their unwillingness to push non-MCU properties is overstated.

This is likely less because of the movies and more because the FF books don't sell.

feels like a false binary when it's easily two birds with one stone

I haven't read FF in decades but kinda bummed their just gonna straight up kill them (only to be revived a few years later by some star team, surely)

Not a false binary when the accusations tossed at Marvel revolve around killing titles because they don't have movie rights - when a simpler explanation is that the Fantastic Four is by far their weakest selling legacy title. The fifth-tier Wolverine books outsell FF

well they're also not allowing fantastic four toys to be made and chris claremont's saying x-authors aren't allowed to create new characters. if marvel truly had no beef with fox, surely they'd use the fantastic four movie to their promotional advantage rather than shutting down the franchise comic-wise entirely?

it's possible they're offing the legacy team so they can have fox's hip new version pop out in the comics universe once the film proves to be a hit, but you'd think they'd curb the rumors of ike perlmutter being furious if that was the case

They may well do that - Marvel timed its Spidey relaunch to coincide with the latest movie. No one outside of Marvel HQ knows what their plans are. Books that sell FF numbers get cancelled all the time so I don't see any reason to assume it's anything but a business decision for now.

As for the X-verse, I'm sure they don't want to gift a hot new character to Universal, but I would guess it's also "you have 500 mutants to play with, why do we need to put energy into a new one?"

but that's the thing - refusing to promote Fantastic Four and provide new characters to the X universe would be a business decision.

marvel makes more money by getting film rights back than by selling a few more comics off another company's movies

I'd totally forgotten in the midst of this recent newsflurry that Marvel has another five (5) series/miniseries lined up on Netflix, and another network series just around the bend.

Rumour is Marvel's TV and movie departments aren't seeing eye to eye

Marvel's Executive Vice President, Head of Television, Jeph Loeb, is disappointed that, in a departure from his work in comics, his touch has yet to turn Marvel's TV projects into the worst shows anyone has ever seen.

though universal's "monsterverse" dreams are cute too

― da croupier, Thursday, October 30, 2014 5:14 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ugh they tried this already and it sucked a dick

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yI7SuBoVL._SY300_.jpg

Old Lunch's comment made me wonder who we can blame Stacy X on and Loeb dodged a bullet there (she was created by Joe Casey, whose X-Men run was so bad that I quit the books until he stopped writing them)

Hope they make a She-Hulk TV series based on the Dan Slott series from a few years back.

Someone told me that this week's FF, Ihumans, X-Men and Wolverine/Cap comics will be the first four Marvel titles with a creator credit for Jack Kirby

wait waht

was that part of the settlement?!

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2014/10/marvel-titles-now-include-jack-kirby-credit/

IIRC the movie credits just say based on comics by stan lee, jack kirby etc etc - wonder if that will change...

but that's the thing - refusing to promote Fantastic Four and provide new characters to the X universe would be a business decision.
marvel makes more money by getting film rights back than by selling a few more comics off another company's movies

It's not like doing so is going to make any rights revert, as long as superhero movies are profitable no one is going to give up a major team. - if Marvel gets the X-Men or anything else back it will be because Disney backed up Scrooge McDuck's vault for someone, knowing that they'd make money in perpetuity with a Marvel theme park.

As I said, Marvel's three biggest events of the year involve non-MCU properties.
Avengers titles are fair-to-middling sales-wise. Outside of the main Avengers title I think Black Widow is actually the top seller. Iron Man was selling FF numbers, they haven't solicited an issue in months and it's being relaunched as Superior Iron Man or Invincible Iron Man or something in the next couple of months. If all they cared about was MCU-comic synergy, wouldn't they make the Avengers or the Netflix titles their highest priority?

the idea is that marvel doesn't want this ff reboot to do well so they're doing nothing to promote it, and that while they aren't going to do the same with the x-universe, they're not going to create more characters for fox to exploit. if you refuse to believe the rumors about marvel top brass being really grumpy about fox's lock on those titles, fine, but they align pretty smoothly with what's happening.

Of course they're grumpy that Marvel sold the rights to a bunch of characters/teams 20 years before Disney was in the picture. They're grumpy about many things, I'm sure.
What I'm saying is that there's no real evidence they're in the habit of cutting off their nose to spite their face - they still make money on those properties, just less. They're never getting them back regardless of promotion by the comic wing. The only thing we know for sure is that one title that doesn't sell is getting cancelled - just like titles that are part of the MCU. On the other hand, we know that they timed their Spidey release to coincide with the movie and that their second biggest selling title of the year (behind ASM1) is about Wolverine.
Deadpool belongs to Fox or Universal, as well, and they're pumping out new Deadpool miniseries left and right - increasing his value as a potential movie.