Marvel Vs. DC on the Silver Screen

[Mathim]

Apparently the Batman Vs. Superman movie has, indeed, backed down from their supposed debut which shared a date with the release of the 3rd Captain America movie. Personally I never doubted for a moment that this would happen but now it's official; one of them was bound to change it rather than having both companies lose money by sharing the same release date but even with two of DC's biggest names coming together in the same movie (at long last) they still apparently weren't prepared to compete directly with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and their no-slowing-down pace and success.

So have a ball discussing anything about upcoming or previously released DC and Marvel films (though we should try to keep them as recent as possible; I'd say no earlier than Blade or X-Men's first movie for Marvel, and Batman Begins for DC.) Are you surprised DC backed down first? Disappointed?

Guardians of the Galaxy made back its budget before its first week was over (no surprises there). I'm just wondering if, by the end of its run, it will double or triple its budget (which is the norm for MCU flicks). I think quadrupling it would be pitiful wishful thinking but hey, I want them to do better. What amazed me was that before they even opened the film in the U.S., the sequel to Guardians was confirmed. I mean, that's pretty risky, not knowing exactly how much it was going to make or what audiences at large would think of it. Seems like it's going to pay off, with it having still very high reviews. Things may change this coming weekend but probably not too much. If anyone's seen it, please, render your opinions (especially if you saw it in 3D).

One last thing before I conclude my first post: I wasn't holding out any deluded hopes of GotG making 1.3 billion (which would have pushed the MCU into the top-grossing film franchise of all time; we'll have to wait for Avengers: Age of Ultron for that) but that would have been funny, seeing the MCU acquire that title before their second Avengers film/before their second phase's conclusion. But it would seem that once they reach that pinnacle, nobody's going to ever top them. Like, literally, EVER.

[Beorning]

Well, early Marvel movies were of varying quality: first X-Men movie was okayish, the second one was great, the third one was awful. There was similar arc (less extreme, though) for Raimi's Spider-Man movies. Daredevil was, apparently, butchered by the producers. Hulk was... just too strange. Both Fantastic Four movies were, as I've heard, bad... But the coming of MCU changed the situation: these movies seem to be rather good. They are doing great at the box office.

Meanwhile, DC isn't doing too well, lately. Batman Begins was good. The Dark Knight was okay, although it was elevated mostly by Heath Ledger's amazing performace. The Dark Knight Rises was rather bad, though... as well, as far as I know, both recent Superman movies. And I've heard only bad things about Green Lantern...

Overall? Marvel wins hands down.

[Mathim]

Well, early Marvel movies were of varying quality: first X-Men movie was okayish, the second one was great, the third one was awful. There was similar arc (less extreme, though) for Raimi's Spider-Man movies. Daredevil was, apparently, butchered by the producers. Hulk was... just too strange. Both Fantastic Four movies were, as I've heard, bad... But the coming of MCU changed the situation: these movies seem to be rather good. They are doing great at the box office.

Meanwhile, DC isn't doing too well, lately. Batman Begins was good. The Dark Knight was okay, although it was elevated mostly by Heath Ledger's amazing performace. The Dark Knight Rises was rather bad, though... as well, as far as I know, both recent Superman movies. And I've heard only bad things about Green Lantern...

Overall? Marvel wins hands down.

Agreed about X-Men, although with the exception of The Wolverine which was a whole lot of nothing, their films have actually been improving quite a bit since the inception of the MCU. About the Nolan Batman trilogy, I have no idea what made you think of the Dark Knight as only 'okay', it was hands-down the best of the three. But TDKR was pure shit, they spent an entire extra year preparing it for a negative payoff story-wise. And the less said about Supes, the better (hard to make an interesting movie about a guy who's straight-up invincible).

Green Lantern was...well, it wasn't worth the 3D ticket price but the more I watch it (totally worth $5 at Target) the less I hate it. It's by no means great, or even good, but 'okay'. If you take it as it is and ignore how good it could have been, it's pretty all right. I'm hoping they have him pass on the ring to Kyle Rayner for the next time we see him and then by the time Justice League officially comes out, we have the John Stewart version. If there's one thing BOTH companies need, it's more diversity.

And yes, both Fantastic Four movies were a complete waste of time. The second one actually managed to be worse than the first (just like the Tom Jane Punisher being followed up by the god-awful War Zone) and now they're completely wiping their asses on it with this reboot they're making.

And I liked Daredevil, I don't care what anyone says. Elektra, however, was pure crap. Even worse than both Ghost Rider failures.

I'm really looking forward to Doctor Strange, who already has a director and, I think, a screenwriter locked in. Methinks them planning it this far ahead means it's going to immediately follow the Cap 3 film which will follow the steadily-looking-less-appealing Ant-Man movie. God only knows who's going to end up playing the Sorcerer Supreme but I really hope it's Luke Evans. Nobody I've seen on IMDB looks more perfectly like the man than him and he's pretty much used to roles of that sort, plus he's not as expensive as R2DJ to cast in multiple films.

[Oniya]

I still get visions of Vincent Price when I think of Dr. Strange.  Appearance, delivery...  *sighs*

[ShadowSlider]

The thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is that NONE of the "Marvel" movies that came out before Iron Man were actually made by Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios didn't even exist before Iron Man.

FOX makes X-Men and Fantastic Four

Sony makes Spider-Man and Ghost Rider (and I *believe* Blade)

So in that regard, this isn't even a fair fight, because DC doesn't have the same level of control over "their" movies. Marvel is making their movies on their own, DC is relying on Warner Brothers to make their movies, and that's honestly what's going to bite them in the ass. Warner Bros. is one of the oldest studios in the business, and as a result, they're stuck in the old-school studio mindset. This has resulted them desperately trying to play catch up with Marvel, rather than taking the time to pause, analyze what Marvel has done that makes their movies work so well, and then replicate that technique themselves. That's why BvS is turning out to be such a bloated movie. They're trying to compress what should be at least three movies into one.

Man of Steel was the first time I've ever genuinely liked Superman and I left that theater super-pumped for a Man of Steel 2. When they announced it as Batman vs. Superman, I'll be generous and say my excitement increased. But when they announced Wonder Woman and Cyborg were also showing up, my excitement level crashed through the floor. One of the reasons the Avengers worked so well is because each of the heroes in it had already been introduced in their own movies, so the film didn't need to spend half its running time introducing everyone and explaining their origins. Batman vs. Superman isn't going to have that luxury, and I will be amazed if the film doesn't collapse under the weight of its studio's greed.

So yeah, like I said, Marvel is so far the clear winner in this fight, but the fight isn't even close to fair.

It's really Marvel vs. Warner Brothers.

[Shjade]

And the less said about Supes, the better (hard to make an interesting movie about a guy who's straight-up invincible).

No.

This argument comes up about Superman pretty frequently and it always seems wrongheaded. It might be hard to make an interesting life-threatening situation for a guy who's straight-up invincible, but there are a lot of options for conflict that aren't life-threatening. If the only movies worth making were about people in danger of being killed there'd be no genres outside of horror and action.

You just have to give him a story that isn't based around bad guys asking, "Do you even lift?" Because yeah, Superman can lift. We all know this. You have to try another angle.

[Beorning]

About the Nolan Batman trilogy, I have no idea what made you think of the Dark Knight as only 'okay', it was hands-down the best of the three.

I'm not so sure  ;)

Of course, it's all a matter of personal opinion, but I thought about The Dark Knight some time after I watched it... and I came to opinion that it's not a great movie in itself. It's good, but there are some downsides (like wasting the character of Two-Face completely). As I said, the thing that really elevates this movie into greatness is Heath Ledger's Joker. Replace him with a lesser actor and the movie becomes... just good.

[TheGlyphstone]

Echoing someone from another forum...DC/Warner Brother's problem is that they're turning all their heroes into Batman. They're...ashamed of superhero stories, in a way, so they think the only successful format is Grim and Gritty and Brown And Grey. Batman works as Gritty, because he's Batman. Superman does not work as Gritty, but they tried it in Man of Steel. The previewed Wonder Woman costume from Dawn of Justice is all dark brown leather and bare metal, with nary a red, blue, or gold in sight.

Marvel, on the other hand, gleefully embraces their four-color origins. They're not afraid to let Superheroes be Superheroes. They take some of the sillier stuff and tone it down a bit, sure, but they don't try to pretend it doesn't exist.

[Beorning]

Totally seconded. DC/Warner really does seem to be ashamed of superheroes and their related tropes. It's not only that they are trying to turn everyone into Batman... even their current vision of Batman himself is very down to Earth. That's my problem with Nolan's Batman movies: every installment, the superheroics were being more and more phased out. It's especially visible in the third movie, when they actually don't have the balls to even name Selina Kyle as Catwoman...

Something related:

http://comicsalliance.com/um-actually-man-of-steel-writer-david-goyers-remarks-on-green-porn-star-she-hulk-and-other-nasty-business/

[TheGlyphstone]

Yeah, David Goyer is an idiot who hates comic book fans. But then again, Marvel has Joe Quesada, who pioneered the 'One More Day' storyline because he didn't think Spider-Man readers could relate to a Peter Parker who wasn't a nerdy single loser with a dead-end job.

[Beorning]

One More Day is something that single-handily killed any remaining interest I had in Spider-Man. I can't take the character seriously anymore.

Thank you, Quesada... *shakes fist*

[Mathim]

The thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is that NONE of the "Marvel" movies that came out before Iron Man were actually made by Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios didn't even exist before Iron Man.

FOX makes X-Men and Fantastic Four

Sony makes Spider-Man and Ghost Rider (and I *believe* Blade)

So in that regard, this isn't even a fair fight, because DC doesn't have the same level of control over "their" movies. Marvel is making their movies on their own, DC is relying on Warner Brothers to make their movies, and that's honestly what's going to bite them in the ass. Warner Bros. is one of the oldest studios in the business, and as a result, they're stuck in the old-school studio mindset. This has resulted them desperately trying to play catch up with Marvel, rather than taking the time to pause, analyze what Marvel has done that makes their movies work so well, and then replicate that technique themselves. That's why BvS is turning out to be such a bloated movie. They're trying to compress what should be at least three movies into one.

Man of Steel was the first time I've ever genuinely liked Superman and I left that theater super-pumped for a Man of Steel 2. When they announced it as Batman vs. Superman, I'll be generous and say my excitement increased. But when they announced Wonder Woman and Cyborg were also showing up, my excitement level crashed through the floor. One of the reasons the Avengers worked so well is because each of the heroes in it had already been introduced in their own movies, so the film didn't need to spend half its running time introducing everyone and explaining their origins. Batman vs. Superman isn't going to have that luxury, and I will be amazed if the film doesn't collapse under the weight of its studio's greed.

So yeah, like I said, Marvel is so far the clear winner in this fight, but the fight isn't even close to fair.

It's really Marvel vs. Warner Brothers.

I purposely omitted the mention of studios because we're talking about the SOURCE MATERIAL and not the peeps producing them. Why limit the discussion by keeping X-Men and other Marvel properties out just because they're not supervised directly by Marvel studios? It doesn't make sense. That being said, Warner Bros. has missed opportunity after opportunity to do as well as Marvel and now they're shooting themselves in the foot (and slapping fans in the face) because of the writing on the wall Marvel's success has left behind them in their wake. If the entire DC library has to suffer because of their intellectual property owners' fuck-ups, screw 'em. I have plenty of Marvel goodness to keep me satisfied, regardless of what studio is backing which franchise (exception being F4 and Spidey which all suck).

No.

This argument comes up about Superman pretty frequently and it always seems wrongheaded. It might be hard to make an interesting life-threatening situation for a guy who's straight-up invincible, but there are a lot of options for conflict that aren't life-threatening. If the only movies worth making were about people in danger of being killed there'd be no genres outside of horror and action.

You just have to give him a story that isn't based around bad guys asking, "Do you even lift?" Because yeah, Superman can lift. We all know this. You have to try another angle.

And where, pray tell, is this story? It seems to have eluded six different films. I mean, strike three and you're out, but doing it twice over? Sorry, I'm done giving them chances to wow me and it doesn't look like BvS is going to change that. Then again, forcing him to be downplayed in favor of other heroes does have the potential to keep him from stealing the spotlight.

One More Day is something that single-handily killed any remaining interest I had in Spider-Man. I can't take the character seriously anymore.

Thank you, Quesada... *shakes fist*

Them killing off Peter Parker in the Ultimate Comics universe destroyed my Spidey excitement, and he was literally my all-time fave of any comic company. The fact that the movies are all lousy didn't help, of course.

I disagree slightly about the DC universe stuff trying to make everyone Batman; Green Lantern didn't go that route (not that it helped much) so there's still hope, just probably not in the form of the last son of Krypton.

[TheGlyphstone]

And where, pray tell, is this story? It seems to have eluded six different films. I mean, strike three and you're out, but doing it twice over? Sorry, I'm done giving them chances to wow me and it doesn't look like BvS is going to change that. Then again, forcing him to be downplayed in favor of other heroes does have the potential to keep him from stealing the spotlight.

Because they're using bad source material - they keep telling his origin story over and over because it's all they know. He's had a long run, but Hollywood writers are by definition edgy about treading new ground.

I don't read Superman, but I know some ones that have been recommended to be for exactly these reasons - confronting Superman with problems he can't just Superpunch to death...
-Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?
-All-Star Superman?
-Superman: Red Son
-Superman vs. The Elite (one of the better animated movies)

[Oniya]

Red Son was the one where Kal-El landed in Russia, right?  That would knock the average movie-goers on their collective ears.

[ShadowSlider]

I purposely omitted the mention of studios because we're talking about the SOURCE MATERIAL and not the peeps producing them. Why limit the discussion by keeping X-Men and other Marvel properties out just because they're not supervised directly by Marvel studios? It doesn't make sense.

Because the title of the thread is "Marvel vs. DC on the Silver Screen". That, at least to me, says we're talking specifically about the movies and not the source material. And in that conversation about the movies, which studios are actually producing said movies is enormously important. Which is why I said that this particular Marvel/DC fight wasn't a fair one, because DC doesn't have creative control over "their" movies and Marvel does.

In Hollywood, that makes all the difference in the world.

[TheGlyphstone]

Red Son was the one where Kal-El landed in Russia, right?  That would knock the average movie-goers on their collective ears.

Yup. I doubt it would ever get a movie, for particularly that reason - it's simply too divergent from the collective-image view of Superman for the general public to swallow. But it's also, reportedly, one of the best-written Superman stories.

[Oniya]

Wonder if they could sneak it through the studios by not playing up the 'This is an alternate Superman' angle?  Kind of like 'Stand By Me' wasn't touted as a Stephen King story, and so the people who weren't horror fans actually went to see it.

[TheGlyphstone]

Superman with a giant hammer+sickle on his chest would be kinda unmistakable, I think. I consider myself a horror fan and I've never read 'Stand By Me', or seen the movie. But I'm definitely not a comic book reader and I absolutely know who Superman is and what he looks like.

[Oniya]

Superman with a giant hammer+sickle on his chest would be kinda unmistakable, I think. I consider myself a horror fan and I've never read 'Stand By Me', or seen the movie. But I'm definitely not a comic book reader and I absolutely know who Superman is and what he looks like.

The story was a short in 'Different Seasons' called 'The Body' (Fall from Innocence?)  I think that was the same compilation as 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' (Hope Springs Eternal?)

[consortium11]

Red Son was the one where Kal-El landed in Russia, right?  That would knock the average movie-goers on their collective ears.

It also features Batman with the most adorable pair of mitten ears and Lex Luthor being respected for how intelligent he is without it descending into "build us a weapon".

On the other hand the portrayal of Wonder Woman is somewhat problematic.

[Mathim]

Because the title of the thread is "Marvel vs. DC on the Silver Screen". That, at least to me, says we're talking specifically about the movies and not the source material. And in that conversation about the movies, which studios are actually producing said movies is enormously important. Which is why I said that this particular Marvel/DC fight wasn't a fair one, because DC doesn't have creative control over "their" movies and Marvel does.

In Hollywood, that makes all the difference in the world.

But you specifically pointed out that neither does Marvel over a significant portion of their franchises, i.e. Spidey, F4, X-Men, and a few others. Again, if I had meant Marvel Studios Vs. Warner Bros. I would have specifically put that in the title or mentioned the specific studios in some way. Since we're at the precipice of finally having the DC universe tread new ground it just seemed like the right time to make a thread like this. It's not a thread to split hairs, it's a thread to talk about which comic movies from which company make it into theaters and what we think of them, and our opinions on upcoming ones. Whether to compare them or not is really optional so let's stop this nonsensical distracting argument.

Lately I've been re-watching the DC Animated Universe stuff, specifically Superman's show, and I have to say, with few exceptions there are no greater plot lines than when Superman is either facing down Darkseid/Apokolips as a whole, or when he's teamed up with the Justice League in that show. I think taking the spotlight away from him is going to do DC a world of good even if they won't end up matching the quality of the MCU films.

I'm going to see Guardians of the Galaxy tomorrow; I'm so freakin' stoked. It took both Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier to get me to believe in Marvel enough again after that god-awful debacle of Iron Man 3 to actually see one of their movies in 3D again and since GotG actually looks like one of those movies that 3D was made for (and not the other way around), so much the better. All my friends, even an ambivalent one whom I hadn't expected to see it, did and said it was good. If it impresses me that much, I'll definitely see Age of Ultron in 3D as well.

[ShadowSlider]

But you specifically pointed out that neither does Marvel over a significant portion of their franchises, i.e. Spidey, F4, X-Men, and a few others. Again, if I had meant Marvel Studios Vs. Warner Bros. I would have specifically put that in the title or mentioned the specific studios in some way. Since we're at the precipice of finally having the DC universe tread new ground it just seemed like the right time to make a thread like this. It's not a thread to split hairs, it's a thread to talk about which comic movies from which company make it into theaters and what we think of them, and our opinions on upcoming ones. Whether to compare them or not is really optional so let's stop this nonsensical distracting argument.

Lately I've been re-watching the DC Animated Universe stuff, specifically Superman's show, and I have to say, with few exceptions there are no greater plot lines than when Superman is either facing down Darkseid/Apokolips as a whole, or when he's teamed up with the Justice League in that show. I think taking the spotlight away from him is going to do DC a world of good even if they won't end up matching the quality of the MCU films.

I'm going to see Guardians of the Galaxy tomorrow; I'm so freakin' stoked. It took both Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier to get me to believe in Marvel enough again after that god-awful debacle of Iron Man 3 to actually see one of their movies in 3D again and since GotG actually looks like one of those movies that 3D was made for (and not the other way around), so much the better. All my friends, even an ambivalent one whom I hadn't expected to see it, did and said it was good. If it impresses me that much, I'll definitely see Age of Ultron in 3D as well.

Honestly, I don't see what was so wrong with Iron Man 3 other than that twist with the Mandarin, which has since been ret-coned by the "All Hail The King" one-shot. I thought it was a great way to finally answer the question Captain America posed in The Avengers; without that suit "what are you?" It is without doubt my favorite of the three Iron Man films.

[Mathim]

Honestly, I don't see what was so wrong with Iron Man 3 other than that twist with the Mandarin, which has since been ret-coned by the "All Hail The King" one-shot. I thought it was a great way to finally answer the question Captain America posed in The Avengers; without that suit "what are you?" It is without doubt my favorite of the three Iron Man films.

Apparently you didn't watch the film. Good, you'd be traumatized by it otherwise. About the Mandarin 'twist', the fact that the movie was ruined by NOT having Iron Man's ultimate foe behind everything was bad enough, but the villains being completely identical and interchangeable, with ridiculously pulled-out-of-the-writers'-asses powers was just awful. Immensely lacking in action, the desperation-move of adding a little-kid sidekick, the plot hole that completely negates the entire 'I'm dying' experience from Iron Man 2 because apparently he could have had the shrapnel and his arc reactor removed at any time, along with no longer being Iron Man as we know him, his blowing up all his suits...need I really go on? That had to have been the most misleading trailer ever.

Plus, I don't give a rat's ass about that 'All Hail the King' thing, that was no excuse for keeping the real Mandarin out of IM3. They're basically saying, "Well, we just fucked off our chance of using Ben Kingsley, the best possible actor we could have gotten to play that role, because we wanted to play a joke and give the fans the middle finger." I don't care who they get to play the Mandarin in the future, if they even bother with it, they wasted the best possible opportunity on the worst possible director and screenwriter.

Anyway, enough about that. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D over the weekend and DAMN, I was impressed! James Gunn hadn't struck me as the kind of guy I'd count on to make a good movie out of this, but it really blew me away how well he pieced everything together. I was a little disappointed that

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

the post-credits scene didn't do anything to tease anything important that might be coming up in either the Avengers' Earthbound capers or any future Guardians stuff (like Miss Marvel, who apparently is going to be joining them in the sequel if they're only going off of the 2008 version of the team) but it was funny as shit to see Howard the Duck, voiced by Seth Green, giving the Collector shit about the space-dog licking his face.

[ShadowSlider]

Apparently you didn't watch the film. Good, you'd be traumatized by it otherwise. About the Mandarin 'twist', the fact that the movie was ruined by NOT having Iron Man's ultimate foe behind everything was bad enough, but the villains being completely identical and interchangeable, with ridiculously pulled-out-of-the-writers'-asses powers was just awful. Immensely lacking in action, the desperation-move of adding a little-kid sidekick, the plot hole that completely negates the entire 'I'm dying' experience from Iron Man 2 because apparently he could have had the shrapnel and his arc reactor removed at any time, along with no longer being Iron Man as we know him, his blowing up all his suits...need I really go on? That had to have been the most misleading trailer ever.

Plus, I don't give a rat's ass about that 'All Hail the King' thing, that was no excuse for keeping the real Mandarin out of IM3. They're basically saying, "Well, we just fucked off our chance of using Ben Kingsley, the best possible actor we could have gotten to play that role, because we wanted to play a joke and give the fans the middle finger." I don't care who they get to play the Mandarin in the future, if they even bother with it, they wasted the best possible opportunity on the worst possible director and screenwriter.

Anyway, enough about that. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D over the weekend and DAMN, I was impressed! James Gunn hadn't struck me as the kind of guy I'd count on to make a good movie out of this, but it really blew me away how well he pieced everything together. I was a little disappointed that

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

the post-credits scene didn't do anything to tease anything important that might be coming up in either the Avengers' Earthbound capers or any future Guardians stuff (like Miss Marvel, who apparently is going to be joining them in the sequel if they're only going off of the 2008 version of the team) but it was funny as shit to see Howard the Duck, voiced by Seth Green, giving the Collector shit about the space-dog licking his face.

Immensely lacking in action? So I guess the attack on Tony's mansion, the bar fight with the Extremis woman, Tony's escape from captivity, the Air Force One sequence, the Iron Legion in the climax, none of those count as action scenes?

And the villains powers weren't just pulled out of the writer's asses. They were actually based on the actual powers of the villian in the Extremis storyline in the comics, which was in turn the basis of the movie.

I actually really liked the bits with the kid. I thought it was a decent way to bring Tony back down to Earth a little bit, by having him interact with someone so far outside of his normal social group.

Also, that "plot hole" you mentioned isn't actually a plot hole. It's poorly handled, but after everything that was said about Extremis over the course of the film and how Tony says to Pepper that fixing her would be a piece of cake, I think it's safe to say that after he sorted Pepper out, he used an upgraded version of the Extremis process on himself so he could survive that surgery. It's not obvious like it should have been, but all the pieces are there if you only take a minute to try and put them together.

And honestly, I'm glad Ben Kingsley wasn't actually the Mandarin. I hate it when white actors are hired to play what were originally minority characters. If the character is Asian, then cast an Asian actor to play them. Even though he's not Chinese, I would much rather have Ken Watanabe play the actual Mandarin than Ben Kingsley.

[TheGlyphstone]

Apparently you didn't watch the film.  About the Mandarin 'twist', the fact that the movie was ruined by NOT having Iron Man's ultimate foe behind everything was bad enough, but the villains being completely identical and interchangeable, with ridiculously pulled-out-of-the-writers'-asses powers was just awful. Immensely lacking in action, the desperation-move of adding a little-kid sidekick, the plot hole that completely negates the entire 'I'm dying' experience from Iron Man 2 because apparently he could have had the shrapnel and his arc reactor removed at any time, along with no longer being Iron Man as we know him, his blowing up all his suits...need I really go on? That had to have been the most misleading trailer ever.

Plus, I don't give a rat's ass about that 'All Hail the King' thing, that was no excuse for keeping the real Mandarin out of IM3. They're basically saying, "Well, we just fucked off our chance of using Ben Kingsley, the best possible actor we could have gotten to play that role, because we wanted to play a joke and give the fans the middle finger." I don't care who they get to play the Mandarin in the future, if they even bother with it, they wasted the best possible opportunity on the worst possible director and screenwriter.

Apparently you didn't watch the film. Good, you'd be traumatized by it otherwise. About the Mandarin 'twist', the fact that the movie was ruined by NOT having Iron Man's ultimate foe behind everything was bad enough,

I guess you didn't watch the movie either? Or, at least, you missed the first two movies, because otherwise you'd have noticed that the comic book Mandarin wouldn't have been possible in the MCU as it's unfolded...science, tech, and magic alien space rings from outer space dragons? The Mandarin they created was lame - very few people disagree with that - but whatthehellhisnamewas the scientist with the tattoos was their Mandarin.

but the villains being completely identical and interchangeable, with ridiculously pulled-out-of-the-writers'-asses powers was just awful.

Your first good point. Extremis serum is a healing factor, it somehow granting pyrokinesis was beyond bizarre and their major screwup. EDIT: So apparently it is an outright super-power serum with pyrokinesis in the comics, which is still a screwup to transfer that of all things into the more down-to-earth-esque MCU.

Immensely lacking in action,

Yeah, you must have accidentally seen The Aslyum's mockbuster knockoff of Iron Man. It could have used less filler fight scenes, in fact, because action wasn't the point of the plot anyways. IM1 was Tony Stark Becomes Iron Man. IM2 was Tony Stark Is Iron Man. IM3 was Iron Man Is Tony Stark, Or Is He? Someone upthread analyzed it much better, but the whole movie and most of the characters are about various facets of the identity crisis and man-becomes-the-mask story.

the desperation-move of adding a little-kid sidekick

Unnecessary? Sure? Desperation move? Only for you.

the plot hole that completely negates the entire 'I'm dying' experience from Iron Man 2 because apparently he could have had the shrapnel and his arc reactor removed at any time,

Yeah, you went to see Steel Guy or whatever it's called, because the only way they could have made it clearer that Tony survived said operation thanks to Extremis would be to paint it in neon letters across the middle of the screen, and only then because he managed to fix the formula. Hopefully they don't forget that in Avengers 2.

along with no longer being Iron Man as we know him, his blowing up all his suits.

A dramatic gesture, but if you thought he won't have a new suit in Avengers 2...

That had to have been the most misleading trailer ever.

Trailer Fails To Portray Entirety Of Movie Accurately! Crucial Plot Twists Not Revealed Months Before Premiere! Film at 11!

Plus, I don't give a rat's ass about that 'All Hail the King' thing, that was no excuse for keeping the real Mandarin out of IM3.

All Hail The King is lame because it's blatantly a scrambling retcon. They 're-invented' Mandarin to fit the Marvel Cinematic Universe instead of the comics canon. He sucked giant throbbing hairy monkey balls, and people went into an uproar that the 'real' Mandarin of the MCU had been wasted on a firebreathing dude with tattoos. So they changed their minds and tried to imply that the 'really real' Mandarin was still out there, which is even stupider than AHTK implies because he's going after Kingsley's character instead of the actual criminal claiming the title of Mandarin that Kingsley was fronting for, like a mob boss putting a horse's head in the bed of his rival's limo driver. Sure, Fake!Mandarin is dead, but that's still no reason to blame the limo driver.

..need I really go on?

Please do, get it all out of your system. It's therapeutic, really.

[consortium11]

And honestly, I'm glad Ben Kingsley wasn't actually the Mandarin. I hate it when white actors are hired to play what were originally minority characters. If the character is Asian, then cast an Asian actor to play them. Even though he's not Chinese, I would much rather have Ken Watanabe play the actual Mandarin than Ben Kingsley.

I'm not sure if you're ignorant of the facts or deliberately being somewhat insulting here but to deny Ben Kingsley's heritage in this way strikes me as grossly insensitive and bordering on the offensive. Kingsley's father was of Gujarati Khoja descent and born in Kenya; only his mother was white. Which actually fits remarkably well with the Mandarin character, who's father was a close descendent of Genghis Khan and who's mother was English (and white).

The idea that a Japanese actor with (as far as I know) entirely Japanese ancestry is a more appropriate choice to portray a Mongol/English character than a Gujarati/English actor strikes me as actually falling into the "all Asians are the same" trap which has plenty of negative connotations.

Would an actor of Mongol/English descent been a better choice in terms of ticking boxes? Maybe... but I'm not aware of many and have no idea if they could have done the job Kingsley did.



On the topic of the Mandarin twist in general, I have mixed thoughts about it. For me, looked at in isolation, the twist was fantastic. With no hint of it in the trailers or publicity and only being hinted at when spoilers came out combined with Kingsley's menacing performance it was the sort of twist that should have made the movie and been a really clever bit of film-making.

But I can't look at it in isolation.

I wanted to see the Mandarin vs Iron Man from the moment the first film was announced. Iron Man may have an extensive rogue's gallery but few of them are anything near iconic; we're not talking Spiderman, Batman or the X-Men here, all of which have a vast number of high profile villains they could face. Iron Man only really has the Mandarin. Yes, the classic dragon alien Makluan science version may not have fitted but he could certainly have been re-imagined; technology based rings (although that might hark back to Iron Man 2 a little), some rejigging of extremis or, if you want to tie it into the rest of the universe, add some infinity gem element to them.

That wanting was not diminished in anyway by the start of the movie. Kingsley was excellent as the Mandarin... as mentioned above menacing, sinister, cool and calculated. I wanted there to be a confrontation... and however well handled the twist was I'll always be disappointed that I never got to see one. 

[TheGlyphstone]

, if you want to tie it into the rest of the universe, add some infinity gem element to them.

That wanting was not diminished in anyway by the start of the movie. Kingsley was excellent as the Mandarin... as mentioned above menacing, sinister, cool and calculated. I wanted there to be a confrontation... and however well handled the twist was I'll always be disappointed that I never got to see one.

See, now this would have been fantastic. And now I'll always live in regret that not only could Mandarin have been not-terrible, he could have been awesome while still appropriate to the cinematic setting.

[ShadowSlider]

I'm not sure if you're ignorant of the facts or deliberately being somewhat insulting here but to deny Ben Kingsley's heritage in this way strikes me as grossly insensitive and bordering on the offensive. Kingsley's father was of Gujarati Khoja descent and born in Kenya; only his mother was white. Which actually fits remarkably well with the Mandarin character, who's father was a close descendent of Genghis Khan and who's mother was English (and white).

Huh, I was unaware of him having that heritage. I stand corrected then.

[Callie Del Noire]

One More Day is something that single-handily killed any remaining interest I had in Spider-Man. I can't take the character seriously anymore.

Thank you, Quesada... *shakes fist*

Yeah..with me it was the 'Captain American isn't relevant in the 21st century.' comment after they killed off Steve Rogers.

[Mathim]

Continuing on about IM3:

The 'action' scenes that had Tony outside of the suit were hardly just that. That's why people are mocking it by calling it Tony Stark 3, featuring Iron Man. They downplayed the suit usage so much it hardly seemed like an Iron Man movie for most of it.

Ben Kingsley's performance as the Mandarin was wasted (especially in the trailer) because of the revelation that it wasn't really him and yes, his heritage (as well as the actual Mandarin's) were why I had thought he was the perfect choice, plus if you think about it how racially insensitive would it be to have an obviously Asian-descent actor portray a Fu Manchu-style stereotype? Talk about selling out. That's like asking an African-American to play a jive character nowadays; people just don't want to see that because it's embarrassing. Pulling off the Mandarin of the comics in the MCU would have been no freakin' problem, I even wrote a script to fix all these horrendous errors and it was extremely simple to have him come into possession of some scavenged alien technology to make into his rings. I mean, Agents of SHIELD does this kind of thing all the time, what's so surprising about someone else getting to an 084 first and finding the mother lode of power? Then it would actually have been worth bringing the Iron Legion into the battle. He could probably wipe out half of them in one stroke with his strongest ring. The suggestion of using an infiniti gem would have been even better. Plus, if you think about it, they wasted an opportunity to open up the space exploration in anticipation of Guardians of the Galaxy by not having the real Mandarin with his scavenged alien tech. Oh, and there was no worthwhile post-credits scene in IM3, either. It just opened up the 'Where the fuck was Banner that whole time, then, or SHIELD for that matter' can of worms. I could probably bitch about it more but I'm already wheezing. One last crack at it: The Hulkbuster from the trailer was a real letdown, too. It didn't do shit!

Looking at the box office numbers, it looks like Guardians of the Galaxy is only going to make back double its budget, not triple as I previously guessed. Too bad. But at least the sequel is already planned regardless. Shame it won't be making the kind of numbers that Cap and Thor's sequels did, at least. I would hope that by now, every MCU film would be pulling in, minimum, 500 mil.

[TheGlyphstone]

Continuing on about IM3:

The 'action' scenes that had Tony outside of the suit were hardly just that. That's why people are mocking it by calling it Tony Stark 3, featuring Iron Man. They downplayed the suit usage so much it hardly seemed like an Iron Man movie for most of it.

It almost feels like you're being ironic on purpose here...because that's the entire point of the movie. Tony is going through post-Avengers PTSD and a 'what am I without my armor' crisis of faith. Most of IM3's storyline is about Tony proving to himself/the audience that yes, he is still Iron Man the superhero even when he's not wearing his power armor.

If you prefer explosively showy action sequences over character development, more power to you. But that wasn't what IM3 was looking for, so it didn't fail because it lacked your particular niche entertainment.

[Mathim]

It almost feels like you're being ironic on purpose here...because that's the entire point of the movie. Tony is going through post-Avengers PTSD and a 'what am I without my armor' crisis of faith. Most of IM3's storyline is about Tony proving to himself/the audience that yes, he is still Iron Man the superhero even when he's not wearing his power armor.

If you prefer explosively showy action sequences over character development, more power to you. But that wasn't what IM3 was looking for, so it didn't fail because it lacked your particular niche entertainment.

That's funny because what I walked away with from that movie was the answer that, no, in fact, he is not Iron Man without the armor. He became a pussy-whipped pansy and as far as I was concerned, this meant Rhodey was going to be taking up the duties of Iron Man in future films. Whatever the intention was to make Tony complete his hero's journey, it was done so poorly (regardless of the other failings of the film) that it all went to waste. He didn't even learn that it wasn't okay to make fun of crippled people. I think if the film spent more time having him feeling the guilt of all his past actions that would have been a better reason for his stress and insomnia.

If he did use a modified version of Extremis to cure himself later on, it still was a complete waste because in the comic arc of Extremis he actually used it to upgrade himself before the final confrontation and that would have been a more plausible means for him to control and summon his suits in the never-explained telepathic manner he did near the end; did he really just copy Vanko's drone models or did JARVIS give himself an aneurysm trying to control all the complex actions each individual drone had to perform?

[ShadowSlider]

That's funny because what I walked away with from that movie was the answer that, no, in fact, he is not Iron Man without the armor. He became a pussy-whipped pansy and as far as I was concerned, this meant Rhodey was going to be taking up the duties of Iron Man in future films. Whatever the intention was to make Tony complete his hero's journey, it was done so poorly (regardless of the other failings of the film) that it all went to waste. He didn't even learn that it wasn't okay to make fun of crippled people. I think if the film spent more time having him feeling the guilt of all his past actions that would have been a better reason for his stress and insomnia.

If he did use a modified version of Extremis to cure himself later on, it still was a complete waste because in the comic arc of Extremis he actually used it to upgrade himself before the final confrontation and that would have been a more plausible means for him to control and summon his suits in the never-explained telepathic manner he did near the end; did he really just copy Vanko's drone models or did JARVIS give himself an aneurysm trying to control all the complex actions each individual drone had to perform?

I... don't understand how you're getting "pussy-whipped pansy" out of Tony in IM3, and I honestly don't think I ever will. When I watched Iron Man 3, I felt like I was really getting to see Tony realize that even without his armor, he was still smart enough and courageous enough to get his way out of pretty much any situation, and that the armor just makes it easier. And honestly, I don't think a subplot  about Tony learning not to make fun of crippled people was necessary, because that scene happened years before the first Iron Man movie, and especially after The Avengers, it's pretty clear that Tony is a much different person than he was back then.

Also, I think making guilt and regret of his past actions the cause of his stress and insomnia would be re-treading way too much ground from Iron Man 1. Think about it. His whole arc in that movie revolves around the guilt and regret he feels for being so arrogant and careless with his company and the weapons he developed. That's the whole reason he became Iron Man. So to repeat essentially the same thing in Iron Man 3? Yeah, no. I vastly prefer the post-Avengers PTSD angle and think it makes much more sense, given what Tony actually went through in the Avengers.

I agree about the Extremis upgrade being poorly handled and at least potentially wasted, but they actually did explain how he could control the suit "telepathically" right in the beginning, when he's injecting the sub-dermal implants into his arms. I also think they made it quite obvious it was JARVIS controlling the Legion. Tony tells him straight up in the beginning of the fight, "JARVIS, target all Extremis heat signatures...". I also say potentially wasted, because I think there's a very decent chance of this coming back up in Age of Ultron. Maybe Cap asks where his Arc reactor is, or during a scene where he shows off his new suit.

EDIT: Also, they never actually said the heavy-lift suit was Hulkbuster, and we're actually getting the REAL Hulkbuster in Age of Ultron. So, yeah. That's gonna be some fun stuff. :P

[Mathim]

I... don't understand how you're getting "pussy-whipped pansy" out of Tony in IM3, and I honestly don't think I ever will. When I watched Iron Man 3, I felt like I was really getting to see Tony realize that even without his armor, he was still smart enough and courageous enough to get his way out of pretty much any situation, and that the armor just makes it easier. And honestly, I don't think a subplot  about Tony learning not to make fun of crippled people was necessary, because that scene happened years before the first Iron Man movie, and especially after The Avengers, it's pretty clear that Tony is a much different person than he was back then.

Also, I think making guilt and regret of his past actions the cause of his stress and insomnia would be re-treading way too much ground from Iron Man 1. Think about it. His whole arc in that movie revolves around the guilt and regret he feels for being so arrogant and careless with his company and the weapons he developed. That's the whole reason he became Iron Man. So to repeat essentially the same thing in Iron Man 3? Yeah, no. I vastly prefer the post-Avengers PTSD angle and think it makes much more sense, given what Tony actually went through in the Avengers.

I agree about the Extremis upgrade being poorly handled and at least potentially wasted, but they actually did explain how he could control the suit "telepathically" right in the beginning, when he's injecting the sub-dermal implants into his arms. I also think they made it quite obvious it was JARVIS controlling the Legion. Tony tells him straight up in the beginning of the fight, "JARVIS, target all Extremis heat signatures...". I also say potentially wasted, because I think there's a very decent chance of this coming back up in Age of Ultron. Maybe Cap asks where his Arc reactor is, or during a scene where he shows off his new suit.

EDIT: Also, they never actually said the heavy-lift suit was Hulkbuster, and we're actually getting the REAL Hulkbuster in Age of Ultron. So, yeah. That's gonna be some fun stuff. :P

I say pussy-whipped pansy because he blows up all his suits just because Pepper tells him to despite how shitty of an idea (not to mention an extremely wasteful and expensive decision) it is and takes out his arc reactor to basically really ram home the fact that he isn't Iron Man anymore. And I'm aware of his probes working for only the Mark 42 armor but not for any of the others, so if he was only telling Jarvis to target Extremis heat signatures, how did the other suits know to go rescue him when he jumped off a crane? Seriously, him having an Extremis upgrade modified to make him and his suits more compatible, that would have taken the whole 'telepathy' thing out of being an asspull. And the 'Igor' version of the Hulkbuster still ought to have had a bigger role and instead held up a falling tower which was like...why even bother? The Iron Legion actually managed to cheapen the idea of itself by being so mediocre.

Anyway, I haven't heard any updates on Ant-Man lately and I'm still really worried they're going to kill any chance of him making an impressive splash on the big screen. Losing Edgar Wright as director wouldn't have been as bad of a loss if they'd gotten his pal Joe Cornish to direct it but they went in a totally different direction and from what I've heard about who the villains are going to be, I'm doubtful it will be as super as we expect from superheroes.

[ShadowSlider]

I say pussy-whipped pansy because he blows up all his suits just because Pepper tells him to despite how shitty of an idea (not to mention an extremely wasteful and expensive decision) it is and takes out his arc reactor to basically really ram home the fact that he isn't Iron Man anymore.

But that was the whole point of the movie. The single theme and issue was "Does the suit make the man, or does the man make the suit?" Tony even says it himself at the very end. You can take away his toys, you can take away his suits, and none of it matters because at the end of the day, everything that really makes Iron Man Iron Man comes from who Tony is as a person. Without him, the suit is just a suit.

[Mathim]

They failed to make the point effective or accurate, is what I'm saying. As if to justify the failure at the end, they shoehorn in this phony self-discovering epiphany. It's as pathetic as the Hail to the King bluff to gloss over the glaring mistakes and oversights.

Blade, Ghost Rider and a few others are already back in Marvel Studios' pocket and I'm wondering how that's all going to work. In a world monitored by SHIELD you'd think things like vampires and demons would be difficult to justify only now starting to come onto their radar. Maybe they're waiting for Doctor Strange's movie before they start allowing these supernatural things to come out of the woodwork in a big way.

What does everyone think about Aquaman appearing in the BvS movie? I was kind of hoping Marvel might squeeze in their aquatic hero Namor the Sub-Mariner before, but I think Universal still owns the rights to his character (like they're ever going to do something with him!) Which of the two would you guys rather see, Aquaman or Namor, in their own stand-alone film?

[Oniya]

It depends.  I've seen an interpretation of Aquaman that was somewhat more respectable than the earlier comics versions - he'd lost a hand, and had a beard is my recollection of the physical differences.  Otherwise, Namor would win my vote.

[consortium11]

Aquaman suffers from the fact that for a long while, fairly or unfairly, he was considered a bit of a running joke, largely because his powers essentially came down to "can talk to fish" and occasionally "has a hook hand he can fire". Because of that he generally hasn't really had too many iconic storylines which relate to him and there have been several attempts to "redefine" the character but, as is the way with comic writers, most of that redefining consists of adding a load of angst and grimdark elements and little of it stuck.

Namor in contrast has a lot of options available. There's his links with the Fantastic Four but one could also focus on his role as the ruler of Atlantis (which is something the comics have tended to focus on in recent years) and possibly the conflict with Wakanda and the Black Panther, his time with the Invaders, his bromance/rivalry with Dr Doom etc etc.

He also has one of the better catchphrases in comics which means you've got a built in iconic moment for any film.

[Mathim]

Aquaman suffers from the fact that for a long while, fairly or unfairly, he was considered a bit of a running joke, largely because his powers essentially came down to "can talk to fish" and occasionally "has a hook hand he can fire". Because of that he generally hasn't really had too many iconic storylines which relate to him and there have been several attempts to "redefine" the character but, as is the way with comic writers, most of that redefining consists of adding a load of angst and grimdark elements and little of it stuck.

Namor in contrast has a lot of options available. There's his links with the Fantastic Four but one could also focus on his role as the ruler of Atlantis (which is something the comics have tended to focus on in recent years) and possibly the conflict with Wakanda and the Black Panther, his time with the Invaders, his bromance/rivalry with Dr Doom etc etc.

He also has one of the better catchphrases in comics which means you've got a built in iconic moment for any film.

I don't know about conflict with Wakanda (would be hard to bring an Atlantean beatdown on a landlocked country, and the other ones are owned by different studios so none of that will be happening) but I'd love to finally see them make a Black Panther movie already, dammit. I'm tired of waiting for Marvel to let their balls descend and start taking more risks than just pumping out sequels to popular titles. Then again, they did that with Guardians and haven't yet doubled their budget. I wish I understood peoples' attitudes; Marvel or not, the movie rocked and should have been able to earn more than that even if not quite as good as the 600M average.

A Namor film would probably need a ton of CGI for the underwater environments and that would probably inflate the budget to the point where it would hurt it too much at the box office. It's weird but I always thought if Disney would remake The Little Mermaid in live action with all CGI backgrounds and stuff, that would be the only movie they'd spring for where the bulk of it takes place underwater (stuff like Finding Nemo doesn't count since it's 100% animated). Too bad DC and Marvel are unlikely to ever get their aquatic heroes their own films. Who has the right look to play Namor, anyway? He's the one hero where I can't immediately conjure up decent look-alike candidates to portray him.

Edit: I googled Namor catchphrases and couldn't pinpoint any good ones. Which one were you referring to?

[TheGlyphstone]

Imperius Rex, maybe?

[Mathim]

Is that really a catchphrase, though? I have no idea what that even means.

[TheGlyphstone]

According to TV Tropes,

Catch Phrase: "Imperius Rex!" It sure sounds cool. Namor's saying he's top dog, pretty much. Imperius is power, empire, while rex means king. Stan Lee did his homework.

So it's not a grammatically correct Latin sentence, but the meaning is easily translatable.

Wikipedia:

By now, during a period fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books, he is more authoritative, arrogant and solemn than the impetuous youthful character of the 1940s and mid-1950s, speaking in neo-Shakespearean dialogue rather than the more colloquial speech of his youth, often shouting his battle cry, "Imperius Rex!".

And it's apparently iconic enough for at least one comic book fansite to use it as the headliner text in a Namor Movie Rights article.

http://www.comicbookbrainsplatter.com/2014/05/imperius-rex-namors-film-rights-are.html?m=1

So yeah, looks like that's his catchphrase.

[Mathim]

I grasp its meaning, it's just so...redundant? I think that's the right word. It just seems like ballast. Even "HULK SMASH!" has more clout.

[VonDoom]

Not quite a catchphrase, but he liked to refer to himself as 'The Avenging Son'.

An Invaders movie would be amazing, incidentally. Not sure if the FF license would interfere with the Original Human Torch or Namor, but with the success of Avengers it'd be pretty hard for it to fail -- it features a super-powered team, Captain America ... and the enemies are Nazis! What could possibly go wrong?

[Chris Brady]

But that was the whole point of the movie. The single theme and issue was "Does the suit make the man, or does the man make the suit?" Tony even says it himself at the very end. You can take away his toys, you can take away his suits, and none of it matters because at the end of the day, everything that really makes Iron Man Iron Man comes from who Tony is as a person. Without him, the suit is just a suit.

And that's the thing, that's not what we wanted to see in Iron Man 3.  We were expecting something more in the vein of Winter Soldier.  Instead we got Whiny Stark.

[Mathim]

And that's the thing, that's not what we wanted to see in Iron Man 3.  We were expecting something more in the vein of Winter Soldier.  Instead we got Whiny Stark.

Exactly. Why bother having Tony make even more suits and power them up even more if he's just going to ultimately think of them as refuse? If they were going to go that route, the trailers could have been modified to show us in what direction they wanted to take us. Instead they bilked us out of 1.3 billion by feeding us bullshit.

[Chris Brady]

Mathim brings up a good point.  The trailers and movie don't match, it feels like a Bait and Switch.  We were shown one thing in the trailers, got another out of the movie.

[consortium11]

Exactly. Why bother having Tony make even more suits and power them up even more if he's just going to ultimately think of them as refuse? If they were going to go that route, the trailers could have been modified to show us in what direction they wanted to take us. Instead they bilked us out of 1.3 billion by feeding us bullshit.

Mathim brings up a good point.  The trailers and movie don't match, it feels like a Bait and Switch.  We were shown one thing in the trailers, got another out of the movie.

Outside of the Mandarin twist (which I've already said I think was extremely well done but the wrong decision) I'm not sure I can agree.

I mean, watch the original trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CzoSeClcw0

It features the suits being blown up, Tony talking about his PTSD, a harrowing look at a cracked Iron Man mask, Tony ripping the mask off, him dragging the Iron Man suit through the snow and only five or six clips of him actually in the suit, only one of which lasts more than a second or two (and that features him being dragged down to the depths). In contrast the first and second film trailers heavily featured him in the suit and suit-based action scenes.

Likewise one can look at the official blurb that went out with the trailer:

In Marvel's "Iron Man 3", brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., is pitted against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

That seems to say pretty clearly to me that this is a film about Stark breaking away from the suit.

[Neysha]

Imperius Rex is Namors most popular phrase.

And Iron Man 3 was a success by every measure.  1.2 billion box office. 78% on Rotten Tomatoes,  and a 7.4 user rating on IMDB. Top seller on home video that year.  People's opinions on the movie might differ,  but the film didn't fail to any stretch of the imagination.

[Mathim]

Outside of the Mandarin twist (which I've already said I think was extremely well done but the wrong decision) I'm not sure I can agree.

I mean, watch the original trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CzoSeClcw0

It features the suits being blown up, Tony talking about his PTSD, a harrowing look at a cracked Iron Man mask, Tony ripping the mask off, him dragging the Iron Man suit through the snow and only five or six clips of him actually in the suit, only one of which lasts more than a second or two (and that features him being dragged down to the depths). In contrast the first and second film trailers heavily featured him in the suit and suit-based action scenes.

Likewise one can look at the official blurb that went out with the trailer:

That seems to say pretty clearly to me that this is a film about Stark breaking away from the suit.

Them releasing another trailer after the first one, with the Iron Legion popping in at the end, kind of said otherwise, though. I remember the first trailer where I did get that impression but the rest of them really did pull the bait-and-switch that Chris Brady mentioned. If actions speak louder than words, I'd have to defer to what the trailer showed rather than any written statements.

Iron Man 3 failed to be a good IRON MAN movie, and at best I thought it a lackluster sci-fi/action movie on its own merits. It didn't fail in many other ways as Neysha pointed out (though I may disagree about whether it deserved not to fail in those other ways) and while I still want I and my friend's $25 back for that insult to our sensibilities and waste of two hours, I'm glad that Marvel did get that little bonus in their pockets that will hopefully give them more courage to take risks on other properties instead of just pumping out sequels with the same characters. It did cost them the price of the 3D tickets I flatly refused to shell out for Thor 2 and Cap 2 as a result; both of those films pleasing me made me trust Marvel Studios enough to spring for 3D on Guardians of the Galaxy and they impressed me even beyond my inflated expectations for it. So I'll definitely be shelling out the extra for 3D on Age of Ultron, though if they fuck THAT one up, I'm going to stay pissed at Marvel forever.

And I'm not sure if it's too soon to talk about Captain America: The Winter Soldier without spoilers but I'd like some opinions on a few things and I'll wrap them in spoiler tags just to be safe for sensitive viewers.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I didn't like that the Falcon wasn't a knock-off Super Soldier like Bucky and that he didn't have the ability to commune with avians which Anthony Mackie reportedly said would be one of his abilities in an interview. How do you guys feel about this?
Also, SHIELD getting totally neutered while HYDRA is still out there seemed like a bad idea, especially with Agents of SHIELD looking forward to a second season. Your thoughts?
Finally, did anyone else feel like, as with Iron Man 3's villains having extremely weak and flimsy motivations for their actions, that the new HYDRA was a sort of cop-out for not being more in line with the Red Skull's ideals or at least having any intention of maybe finding or reviving him? Just seems like the fanatical cult turning into that watered-down version isn't really a good approach to defining this new threat (not to mention having a leader who isn't superpowered himself). But maybe that's just me. Opinions?

[Oniya]

Winter Soldier Stuff

I wouldn't necessarily discount HYDRA just yet.  Sure, SHIELD cut off one of its heads, but the outro showed that the group wasn't down for the count.  I'm not even entirely certain that we've seen the real leader.

Regarding Falcon - is it possible that they might expand on him in the next Cap movie?  Serums and mutagens have a tendency to seep out of the woodwork just when comic readers think they might be lost forever.

[Mathim]

Winter Soldier Stuff

I wouldn't necessarily discount HYDRA just yet.  Sure, SHIELD cut off one of its heads, but the outro showed that the group wasn't down for the count.  I'm not even entirely certain that we've seen the real leader.

Regarding Falcon - is it possible that they might expand on him in the next Cap movie?  Serums and mutagens have a tendency to seep out of the woodwork just when comic readers think they might be lost forever.

Thanks for responding.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I know HYDRA isn't down for the count and I guess neither is SHIELD (not completely, but they've lost a lot, and most of their best and brightest) so it just seems like with HYDRA still skulking around and a depowered SHIELD being left without the kind of resources and manpower it would need to shut them down, there's a huge imbalance in power that's shifting in favor of the bad guys.

And yeah, they can always expand him later but I would have thought his character would be more interesting, and would have been better used, if they'd have gone that route in this film rather than waiting. I mean, if they were able to give Bucky super soldier powers, they could have given Sam Wilson a mutant version that gives him the Falcon powers in addition to being super. I wrote an interesting alternate version of the film that would have made things a little more amped up and satisfying action-wise.

Was anyone else bothered by all the jump-cut editing during the fights between Cap and Bucky? I just thought if neither man knows how to 'film fight' then the solution is to hire a fight choreographer rather than use rapid, motion-sickness-inducing editing to fake it.

[Oniya]

Thanks for responding.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I know HYDRA isn't down for the count and I guess neither is SHIELD (not completely, but they've lost a lot, and most of their best and brightest) so it just seems like with HYDRA still skulking around and a depowered SHIELD being left without the kind of resources and manpower it would need to shut them down, there's a huge imbalance in power that's shifting in favor of the bad guys.

And yeah, they can always expand him later but I would have thought his character would be more interesting, and would have been better used, if they'd have gone that route in this film rather than waiting. I mean, if they were able to give Bucky super soldier powers, they could have given Sam Wilson a mutant version that gives him the Falcon powers in addition to being super. I wrote an interesting alternate version of the film that would have made things a little more amped up and satisfying action-wise.

Was anyone else bothered by all the jump-cut editing during the fights between Cap and Bucky? I just thought if neither man knows how to 'film fight' then the solution is to hire a fight choreographer rather than use rapid, motion-sickness-inducing editing to fake it.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Giving the bad guys a perceived advantage is probably a way of generating drama so that the next movie has something to work with.  We see that HYDRA has these big guns waiting, and it's almost like there should be a voice-over of Stan Lee saying 'Tune in next time, true believers!' 

While the editing did give my stomach the jolts, I found it easier to deal with than the camera work in movies like Gladiator.  Maybe it was because - with the action taking place at fatally high elevations above the Potomac - there's an expectation of vertigo.  The fear of falling is primal, and while Bucky might have been able to ignore it because of whatever else HYDRA did to him, I don't think Cap is completely immune to it.

[Mathim]

Meh, I don't think that's a good enough excuse for it.

Something funny for you guys to check out, but beware there's still spoilerfication; if you click 'play' it's on your own head.

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

[Neysha]

I thought that youtube channel was clever when it first started and dealt with things like Avatar and whatnot, but it's become so formulaic that now they're just making the video equivalent of tedious nitpicking and other associated nerdisms most people don't care about. So... as vanilla humor goes, it's okay.

[Top Cat]

Didn't see this thread when it started...

I've discussed this with a coworker who is a long-time DC fan, and we both agree on the same fundamental state of affairs:

• Marvel, since it took over their movie production, has been knocking movies out of the park, while DC has been floundering.
• DC has been consistently making fun, interesting TV shows (both animated and live-action), while Marvel's TV offerings have mostly been lackluster.
• Both companies are floundering badly in their print comics, with too much focus on mega-cross-title events, too much sliding toward darker, edgier storytelling, and the apparent dismissal of stories/comics that are fun and silly.

DC's biggest problem on the movie side of things is that they hit the cultural conscious too hard with Superman and Batman in the past, while neglecting the rest of their library. They relied too heavily on those two characters, because they were the ones that became popular and known; they chose to go with the sure-fire profitable asset, rather than building awareness of more of their less-known characters. Marvel, at least, experimented in the 70's with the Spider-Man and Captain America light movies they ran in the summer for several years. They've been making up some of this problem with their television offerings, with Justice League and Teen Titans helping broaden the awareness of their characters, but in the box office, they're still relying too much on Superman and Batman.

Marvel, on the other hand, is putting all of its eggs on the movies, and the animated TV shows are, at best, "passable." The only out-of-the-park TV show they've had in the past two decades is the first X-Men animated series, and while it certainly helped bring the X-Men into the public awareness, their follow-ups have been less powerful and less interesting... and it ended almost two decades ago, in 1997. Looking at their list of shows, it's clear that they've been trying to claim some presence in the television world, but as the majority of their shows have been 1-2 season flops, it's hard to say that they're succeeding.

But both companies are having a serious problem with converting their fans from TV and movies to comics, and a large part of that is that they're either basing the movies off of old versions of their comic history - there's a distinct disconnect between what they're doing with their comics characters, and how they're using them everywhere else. There have been dozens (if not hundreds) of blogs complaining about DC's treatment of Starfire in the New 52, but one of the most significant is one I can't find again - someone talking about their teenage daughter, who loved the Teen Titans animated show, being thrilled to find out that Starfire, her favorite character, was going to be in a new comic, in the New 52, and being horrified that the character was essentially a brainless sex doll. Yes, they've partially rolled back some of that, but she's still a very different character in the New 52 than she was back in the 80's, or in the animated series.

But that's not only DC, as I said - both companies have this problem. Marvel has made a huge success with their Avengers movie, by taking characters that people already knew about thanks to other movies, and threading the movies all together, rather than each one standing alone. So what's wrong with that? Well, let's take a list of who is in the Avengers movie. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. That's a solid line-up of characters, right? But if someone who loved the movies goes and picks up an Avengers comic today, what do they get?

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

No Hulk, Hawkeye or Black Widow at all. Female Thor. Black Captain America. 8 other characters that they may or may not know from other sources (Scarlet Witch has been in quite a few animated series, Winter Soldier is obviously in the most recent Captain America movie, Deathlok was heavily-featured in Agents of SHIELD). The only character that's consistent is Iron Man... and from all reports, he goes from egotistical to tyrannical in this story arc.

Now, don't get me wrong. I actually have no objection to the Femme-Thor* or Black Captain America**, or adding new and different characters to the Avengers (but how the heck are they accepting Angela, who is a VERY new face in the Marvel world?), just that this is a terrible time to be doing it. By having such a dramatic difference between what they're showing in the movies and what's going on in the comic, they run a very strong risk of turning away potential new readers. The bigger the difference, the stronger the effect... and man, is this some huge difference.

Both companies need to balance better between attracting new readers and not alienating the long-time fans, and both are failing on both of those now.

* The new woman using Thor's hammer has several appearance traits very similar to Valkyrie. That's my guess, but I'm not confident enough in that guess to bet money on it. ;)

** Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, is arguably one of the BEST people to pick up the Captain America mantle if Steve Rogers is busy playing super-spy since he's spent years as Cap's partner, and people can identify him from Falcon's appearance in the Winter Soldier movie.

[Mathim]

^

Damn, bro, that's the best objective examination of the topic yet! Bravo *applauds*. I agree, the Avengers may be the moneymaking kingpin of the cinema world but neither company's record is spotless and they're going to continue facing problems they don't have any easy solutions to. Pandering to young money at the expense of older, more devoted fans who made them what they are today (and let's face it: This pandering to children is ludicrous given these are PG-13 movies). DC should have taken more risks earlier and it's causing them to suffer, and the failure of Green Lantern to please most audiences didn't help them decide to do what Marvel did with things like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, bringing in more obscure or less-popular properties and seeing how well they fare with the public. Guardians is almost up to $450 million which would at least be semi-close to the other Phase 2 box office receipts (other than IM3).

DC Vertigo comics have inspired a lot of films (really want them to make a film series or at least TV series out of things like Preacher and Y: The Last Man already) but while some may receive positive reviews, they aren't really box office smashes. Jonah Hex, for example, wasn't critically acclaimed or financially successful (and I personally thought it mostly boring despite Michael Fassbender playing such a fascinating character before switching to Marvel to play Magneto).

[Top Cat]

Thanks, Mathim. =^_^=

I've got strong hopes that DC pulls its editorial head out of its publishing ass, but there's too much inertia, and too many very bad things in their history, that make me think that their attempt to follow Marvel's example and make a powerful Justice League live-action movie won't end up being very good. But I'm an optimist, so I'm holding my fingers crossed all the same.

One thing that I was going to mention in the earlier post, but forgot about (and didn't really have room for) is DC's treatment of Wonder Woman in the past few years. They changed her costume along with the New 52 Reboot, and attempted to make a TV show using the new outfit. It was cancelled before the pilot episode was even completed. But while they were doing this new, "hip," modern look for her, they were still using the classic Wonder Woman image in lots of other venues - advertising channels for other products, humanitarian ads for charities, the Justice League animated show, and so on. So the question was, "Are they really getting rid of the classic look, or is this just a temporary thing?" Interestingly, some photos of Wonder Woman from the Superman/Batman movie have been leaked, and she's in something very close to the classic look, not the New 52 design. So that may be a good sign for the future of DC movies.

Time will tell. =^_^=

Edit: The woman playing Wonder Woman is named Gal Godot, and here's one of the leaked photos:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

[TheGlyphstone]

When I saw that picture for the first time, my faith in Dawn of Justice eroded even further. Wonder Woman's costume is as much the colors as the design; red, blue, and gold. That Wonder Woman is GRITTY and BROWN and MODERN and BROWN and DARK and BROWN. Call of Modern Battlefield Duty wishes it could be so BROWN.

(technically, I think it's supposed to be bronze coloring. But the lighting and background...just makes it BROWN.)

[ShadowSlider]

When I saw that picture for the first time, my faith in Dawn of Justice eroded even further. Wonder Woman's costume is as much the colors as the design; red, blue, and gold. That Wonder Woman is GRITTY and BROWN and MODERN and BROWN and DARK and BROWN. Call of Modern Battlefield Duty wishes it could be so BROWN.

(technically, I think it's supposed to be bronze coloring. But the lighting and background...just makes it BROWN.)

Yeah, that was pretty my reaction as well. And it wasn't helped at all by the casting. I've got nothing against Gal Gadot, but I fear for what her Wonder Woman will be like if her performance in the Fast and Furious movies are anything to judge by. I really feel like she was cast because of her looks, and not her actual acting abilities.

God I hope I'm proven wrong about that...

[Top Cat]

IMO, that picture is better than the early New 52 costume:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Red, gold, and black... revised to red, gold, and blue. I believe that the more recent comic outfits have dampened the gold down to white/silver.

Honestly, I think their biggest problem with trying to do a new live-action Wonder Woman (in any sense) is that they can't even come close to Lynda Carter's look. Costume be damned, they need someone who can meet her style.

Edit for clarity: What I like about the movie leaked pic is that she looks like a warrior, as I think Wonder Woman should regardless of how her clothes look. The biggest problem with the ill-fated TV show is that the actress they chose NEVER looked heroic or strong. Similarly, the New 52 outfit looked... "trendy" and "hip," not "serious" or "combat-capable."

[Pumpkin Seeds]

I have a few problems with the leaked photograph.  The first is that the woman here is not a strong, built warrior type that Wonder Woman portrays.  Honestly the new 52 comics do show a well built and strong woman, not just a sexy body that throws people around.  This is a seriously new take on beauty and the feminine body.  Honestly that is a very brave avenue to wander down, especially considering many of DC’s other women seem to be more “sex doll” in appearance.  Wonder Woman definitely breaks that mold there, but not here in the movies.  My other problem is that little stands out from this image and say Xena Warrior Princess.  While nothing is wrong with the warrior princess motif, other than being cliché, there should be something here that screams “Wonder Woman.”  I mean, this is the iconic image for women in comics.  You would think DC would make sure to hit a homerun with this one as this would actually be the first, true female super hero on the big screen with this new generation of movies.  Instead we have a model, dressed up in a Xena costume that is playing third fiddle to Superman and Batman.

DC is not being adventurous or risk taking in letting Wonder Woman stand on her own, but is instead making a safer bet that their two main male characters will carry through to the box office.  The reboot of the Tomb Raider video game series should have shown them that not only can a female action lead carry the product, but can carry that product to great income.

[Neysha]

Wonder Woman looks like a fashion model dressed in leather. Couldn't they have hired someone with a bit of a muscular build? And nothing against Gal Gadot, but she's not exactly a well renowned actress and hasn't particularly impressed me in anything she's done. And her bikini scene in Fast Five made me hungry for a cheeseburger. Is DC even trying to market Wonder Woman seriously as a character with that effort?

The MCU has thrown higher regarded female acting talent at far more minor comic book characters. Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Glenn Close as Nova Prime, Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter, Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow, Gwynneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Rene Russo as Frigga, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Jaime Alexander as Lady Sif, Liv Tyler as Betsy Ross, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Kat Dennings as Darcy... all of those actresses are at least as popular and have a more impressive quality of work then Gal Gadot who is basically the most famous superheroine... period.

I'm not saying that Gal Gadot is going to fail. I hope she succeeds spectacularly. But while there have been (unfortunately) several iterations of a waifish or thin Wonder Woman, I was hoping they wouldn't cast a thin actress from the fashion industry and little establishment from a body of quality work to be portraying the premier heroine in the history of comic books. I cast further doubt on her success because I don't think Zack Snyder has the directorial talent to bring out the best from his actors like I would think others could.

[Chris Brady]

The other issue with the DC films is that Warner Brother execs have a direct hand in how they're made, and like Video Game execs, they have no idea what it is to make a movie.  Often hiring people who don't know, like or have ever read a comic.  Worse, they seem afraid of letting their superheroes be superheroes.

Marvel on the other hand, seems to understand, and gets directors and producers that are fans, or who've worked in the comic industry.

In the animated front, I'm not sure but as long as they Andrea Romano handling the casting and actors, DC seem to be doing pretty well.

[Mathim]

The other issue with the DC films is that Warner Brother execs have a direct hand in how they're made, and like Video Game execs, they have no idea what it is to make a movie.  Often hiring people who don't know, like or have ever read a comic.  Worse, they seem afraid of letting their superheroes be superheroes.

Marvel on the other hand, seems to understand, and gets directors and producers that are fans, or who've worked in the comic industry.

In the animated front, I'm not sure but as long as they Andrea Romano handling the casting and actors, DC seem to be doing pretty well.

I love Andrea, she does such a great job casting voice talent.

Lots of new developments on the Ant-Man front; looks like a few cast members have been added but without who they'll be playing, though some are fairly obvious. I really want more press releases on this since I don't think any MCU pic has had this kind of strife involved in its development. Does anyone think these kinds of details should be spoiler-censored or what? Like for stuff about Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man and Batman Vs. Superman, the big titles coming out but that aren't here yet and haven't got trailers.

[Top Cat]

With regard to the Ant-Man movie, I have one huge problem with it, based on early information that may get changed before the movie is released.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

From what I've heard, Janet Van Dyne (Wasp) ends up being killed off-screen as part of the early story or pre-story. WTF, people? Come on, Marvel, you should know better than to Fridge a popular female character.

This is one of my biggest problems with DC, although they seem to have mostly learned from their lessons - killing off other characters, especially female characters, solely as a way to get some pathos for a protagonist is uncool. Wasp was one of the FOUNDING members of the Avengers, and has been the Leader more than once (and a very solid, capable leader, at that). There's just too much face-palm here... that's a terrible way to start a new movie.

[Mathim]

With regard to the Ant-Man movie, I have one huge problem with it, based on early information that may get changed before the movie is released.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

From what I've heard, Janet Van Dyne (Wasp) ends up being killed off-screen as part of the early story or pre-story. WTF, people? Come on, Marvel, you should know better than to Fridge a popular female character.

This is one of my biggest problems with DC, although they seem to have mostly learned from their lessons - killing off other characters, especially female characters, solely as a way to get some pathos for a protagonist is uncool. Wasp was one of the FOUNDING members of the Avengers, and has been the Leader more than once (and a very solid, capable leader, at that). There's just too much face-palm here... that's a terrible way to start a new movie.

I have to say I completely agree.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Not only that, but the fact that they're taking the approach of having an elderly, retired Hank Pym take a backseat to Scott Lang as the introduction to Ant-Man is a really strange, potentially shitty idea. Making up a daughter that never existed to presumably take up the mantle of Wasp and again, presumably be Scott's new love interest, is also dubious. What would have been the problem with just using Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne? I know the idea of Ant-Man isn't exactly screaming 'wow cool' but team him up with Wasp and you've got potential since then you have more than one hero even if their combined set of abilities isn't as impressive as some we've seen so far. Nobody's mentioned Ant-Man's ability to become Giant Man in the film yet, so hopefully that's just going to end up being a very nice, well-kept secret surprise for us later on.

A different spoiler-related thing I just found out follows for those who don't want Ant-Man spoilers but more of a general Marvel-related spoiler.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I also hear that, after Ant-Man and the good Doctor Strange (Possibly even before Strange, actually), Marvel Studios is dumping the whole origin story format. So any new major characters, including Black Panther, Ms. Marvel and others, are going to be more or less in media res by the time they make appearances. Do you guys agree with this or are you all still fond of getting to know these wonderful people(ish) all over again?

[Top Cat]

I have to say I completely agree.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Not only that, but the fact that they're taking the approach of having an elderly, retired Hank Pym take a backseat to Scott Lang as the introduction to Ant-Man is a really strange, potentially shitty idea. Making up a daughter that never existed to presumably take up the mantle of Wasp and again, presumably be Scott's new love interest, is also dubious. What would have been the problem with just using Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne? I know the idea of Ant-Man isn't exactly screaming 'wow cool' but team him up with Wasp and you've got potential since then you have more than one hero even if their combined set of abilities isn't as impressive as some we've seen so far. Nobody's mentioned Ant-Man's ability to become Giant Man in the film yet, so hopefully that's just going to end up being a very nice, well-kept secret surprise for us later on.

Honestly, early Ant-Man and Wasp, with Hank and Janet, would make some good story-telling; they could explore the spousal abuse that broke them up as a subplot in movie # 2 or 3, if they wanted to touch on such an issue. That's one of the cases where Marvel had a near-fridging situation, and resolved it brilliantly, in that Janet was strong enough emotionally to kick Hank to the curb over it.

A different spoiler-related thing I just found out follows for those who don't want Ant-Man spoilers but more of a general Marvel-related spoiler.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I also hear that, after Ant-Man and the good Doctor Strange (Possibly even before Strange, actually), Marvel Studios is dumping the whole origin story format. So any new major characters, including Black Panther, Ms. Marvel and others, are going to be more or less in media res by the time they make appearances. Do you guys agree with this or are you all still fond of getting to know these wonderful people(ish) all over again?

Call it 50-50. I'd like to see new origins for the Marvel MovieVerse, since it's clearly not the same as the comic universes, and it gives the writers an opportunity to stretch their legs and explore a known story in new ways. But if they're going to make good movies, I can accept having them dump the origins, and simply acknowledging, "There's super heroes in this world, move on."

On a completely different subject: I think what DC needs to do to really set the stage for a new attitude on their movies is to skip the Supes/Bat things (deal with them later), and go with one of the other characters that has been dealt with in animation. Say, make a live-action Static Shock movie, or Booster Gold.

[Mathim]

Honestly, early Ant-Man and Wasp, with Hank and Janet, would make some good story-telling; they could explore the spousal abuse that broke them up as a subplot in movie # 2 or 3, if they wanted to touch on such an issue. That's one of the cases where Marvel had a near-fridging situation, and resolved it brilliantly, in that Janet was strong enough emotionally to kick Hank to the curb over it.
Call it 50-50. I'd like to see new origins for the Marvel MovieVerse, since it's clearly not the same as the comic universes, and it gives the writers an opportunity to stretch their legs and explore a known story in new ways. But if they're going to make good movies, I can accept having them dump the origins, and simply acknowledging, "There's super heroes in this world, move on."

On a completely different subject: I think what DC needs to do to really set the stage for a new attitude on their movies is to skip the Supes/Bat things (deal with them later), and go with one of the other characters that has been dealt with in animation. Say, make a live-action Static Shock movie, or Booster Gold.

Agree about the Hank Pym wife-beating thing, that would certainly portray him as a hero with more than his fair share of character flaws and really make any redemption they decide to have him go for be all the more significant but this was discussed in another thread a while ago and it was widely believed that while we could forgive Tony Stark for the equivalent of drunk driving, an awful crime that kills numerous people every day, America was too squeamish to forgive slapping one's wife/girlfriend whether drunk or otherwise. Marvel did decide to puss out on that one too apparently, a black mark on their record of being willing to take bold risks.

I don't like the idea of losing the origin story format if only because Marvel Studios doesn't have dibs on many of their popular properties and so the heroes they do have,

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

especially for characters like Guardians of the Galaxy whom they were unavoidably forced to fudge the origins on just a bit

, kind of do need origins to establish them since without that, the only choice for pointing out things would be using flashback sequences which will end up getting as repetitive as the formula of using origin stories, in my opinion.

DC did not have a lot of success with Steel way back in the '90's and Green Lantern didn't perform as well as they projected so them dropping their biggest names in favor of other stuff right now, even if they could get away with a minimal budget and maximum effect, they'd still never greenlight it. If they just did the smart thing and follow Green Lantern with another solo Justice League member movie like the Flash or something, they'd be in a much better position. But they fucked that up by acting all butt-hurt about Green Lantern and bullshitted about it still being part of a trilogy which is never going to happen. Hell, if they'd at least made a sequel by now they'd be in a better position to give more credibility to Batman Vs. Superman.

[Jmorty33]

I'm gonna throw my two scents in on the whole Gal Gadot/ Wonder Woman topic. As for the costume itself... yeah it's a bit lackluster in the color department and does call to mind the whole warrior princess motiff that's been done before. But this is just the first costume. Hell, Diana's probably not even going to be called "Wonder Woman" in the movie! The costume works logically though. Diana would be from Themyscira, an amazon nation. Amazons are from Greece meaning that the main metal they have to work with would be bronze, gold, silver, and iron. Not metal that's red, white, or blue. So the armor of course would be made of the metal they have and the leather they work with, which would be a predominantly brown and bronze color pallet. She's dressed in the armor from her homeland, it works. Perhaps after the movie, where Diana comes in contact with the outside world, the armor will change to reflect that and we could see the red and blue stuff come out in a later movie. But for her first appearance, it fits. Plus who's to say they won't change her costume in between movies? Captain America has gone through about four costume changes in three movies, and he's getting a new one in Age of Ultron, so that makes five.

[Chris Brady]

Honestly, early Ant-Man and Wasp, with Hank and Janet, would make some good story-telling; they could explore the spousal abuse that broke them up as a subplot in movie # 2 or 3, if they wanted to touch on such an issue. That's one of the cases where Marvel had a near-fridging situation, and resolved it brilliantly, in that Janet was strong enough emotionally to kick Hank to the curb over it.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

  IT WAS ONE TIME!  ONLY ONE TIME AND IT WAS AN ARTIST'S MISTAKE!  I'm sorry but that total BS that Henry Pym in the 616 universe is a 'wife beater' is just that BS!  This is the blog of the man who wrote the comic HIMSELF:  http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/03/hank-pym-was-not-wife-beater.html

Gah, I HATE this perception.  I'm sorry Mathim, I promised not to bring it up...  But...  I'm going to spoiler it, apologies.

[Top Cat]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

  IT WAS ONE TIME!  ONLY ONE TIME AND IT WAS AN ARTIST'S MISTAKE!  I'm sorry but that total BS that Henry Pym in the 616 universe is a 'wife beater' is just that BS!  This is the blog of the man who wrote the comic HIMSELF:  http://www.jimshooter.com/2011/03/hank-pym-was-not-wife-beater.html

Gah, I HATE this perception.  I'm sorry Mathim, I promised not to bring it up...  But...  I'm going to spoiler it, apologies.

I understand not liking it, but that's how Marvel took the story. Even if it was caused by one artist misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting the writer's intentions, it was supported and carried on even in that same issue, with Janet showing her black eye in the "court martial." And they ran with that well beyond that one issue, including an eventual reconciliation and friendship between the two. Hank made a pretty big mistake, and eventually learned and grew from it. Marvel, for once, did the responsible thing with it, and kept it as it was first printed, rather than retconning it down the line.*

And it's kind of hard to really work around this:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

There's a lot of discussion that could be had over how much power a writer has after their work sees print (see, "Han Shot First," for an iconic example of that), and how much "belongs" to the public that reads/watches your work, but that's getting too far off-field, I think. I'll try to make a new thread to discuss that later.

* Incidentally, this one one of my beefs with both Marvel and DC. DC's solution to the problem of ever-growing canon backstory is to occasionally crash all, or most, of it to the ground, making the past no longer canon so that they have the freedom to write new stories without having to risk countering something that was established years or decades before. Marvel's solution is that canon beyond the last year is less relevant, and writers can outright retcon known events if the new story benefits. I don't think that either of these is the best solution for dealing with monolithic canon, but I don't have an easy solution, either.

[Chris Brady]

For the record, Marvel has never run with it in the 616 universe.  In the Ultimates I think they did, but that didn't fare all that well.  It's the comic fans that have taken up the arms and painted Pym.

As for the Ant-Man movie, here's the thing, let's assume that Marvel is going to shy away from that, but still keep Janet dead.  Bear in mind that Hank Pym never wanted to be a hero.  He always wanted to be stuck in the lab working with his friends, the bugs.  Now, in theory, given that Pym also has a tendency to focus entirely on his failures, despite having made some pretty big advances in science that helps others (although they're removing Ultron, which he considers his biggest), and that Janet has been successful at everything she's done, there was likely a break up of their relationship, which likely would never have a harsh word thrown about.  Just she realizing that no matter how much they love each other, it's just not going to work out.

So what she does she do?  Goes adventuring and superheroing by herself.  And unfortunately, the truth of the matter is, neither Ant-Man or Wasp is actually that powerful, and neither are well trained fighters.  So, maybe, Wasp got in over her head, without the Avengers or just Hank watching her back (they could EASILY make the opposite happen.  Wasp and Ant-Man still break up, but he dies in a lab accident, or tries to be a hero, but like I said, not that well trained for it) and got killed.  Boom, done.  Now Hank has to deal with the guilt (on top of all the other failures in his life) that he wasn't there when the woman he loves was in danger.

I'm hoping they go that route and ignore the fan fueled apparent hatred of Hank Pym, over a small mistake made by an artist.  Which I'd like to point out is the only time in all of the 616 Universe's portrayal of Hank Pym hitting an unsuspecting Janet Van Dyne.  I cannot speak for the Ultimates.

[Top Cat]

For the record, Marvel has never run with it in the 616 universe. 

I suppose that depends on what is meant by "run with it." Did they make a huge issue out of it? No. Did they treat it as something that had happened? Yes, very much so. But they treated it as something that happened once, not an OMG HE CAN'T BE TRUSTED!!!! drama fest, which (you're correct) was a vast overreaction by the fan base.

He was in severe sleep deprivation (having been awake for 3 days), frustrated, depressed - it was a cocktail for overreaction and poor choices. He did it; he regretted it later. I seem to recall something in West Coast Avengers where he was talking with another woman (Tigra?) about his mistake that night - more concerned about having punched Janet than loosing a killer robot on the Avengers!

My point, overall, is that Marvel handled the disintegration of the marriage and relationship between Hank and Janet fairly well, pretty maturely. Which is a noticeable difference from how Scott Summers tarts himself all over the place...  >:)

[Chris Brady]

You didn't read the blog did you?  Nevermind, I'm done with this topic.

[Top Cat]

You didn't read the blog did you?  Nevermind, I'm done with this topic.

I did read the blog. Did you?

Spoilering to save everyone else from this off-topic response.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Let's go over the facts, only as explained in the blog. I'll leave out any other details until I'm done listing the sequence of events for that issue, Avengers #213 (more than 30 years ago!).

• Jim Shooter was the lead writer for that issue. He'd been planning this for months, getting feedback from psychologists, etc. to make sure that it felt real to the readers, and the subscription rate was up because of it.
• The script he wrote for that page didn't have Hank hitting Janet; it was supposed to be more of a "go away" gesture, not an impact. Note that your attitude on the subject makes it seem like you stopped reading at this point.
• Bob Hall, the artist for that issue, liked having "extreme" actions, and drew the backhanded punch that I linked above.
• There wasn't enough time to redraw it (implies that Shooter actually argued against it, and got overruled by the Editors).
• Shooter was too busy to write the last 1/3 of the issue, so Roger Stern did; he's the one who wrote the scene of Janet lowering her glasses and showing the black eye.
• The scene was published as Bob Hall drew it. This is now canon.

Note, especially, that Jim Shooter isn't even the copyright holder for the character; he doesn't have the final say on what a given character can or can't (or will or won't) do. He had an idea; with an artist's misunderstanding and an editor's decision, the idea ended up being different from what he intended it to be. This is far from the only time that's happened in comics, although you don't generally get to hear about those.

Now, I suggest you go back and read my posts. At no point have I used the term "wife beater" - that's been solely you. Hank hit Janet hard enough to give her a black eye. This is canon. From that issue forward, that's the fact of that day, and has been mentioned in quite a few other comics over the years, usually from Hank himself talking about it with other characters. However, to me "wife beater" means someone who repeatedly goes and abuses his wife. I don't even think that, as the canon event happened, he intended to hurt Janet. But whether he wanted to or not, he did. And then spent the next 20 real-life years of Marvel Comics trying to be a better man than he had been. If the Avengers had considered him an angry, violent individual (a description usually applied to "wife beaters"), they never would have made him the head of Avengers Academy.

I think you're far too emotionally invested in this, and need to step back and look at it again. Reread the blog or not; reread the comics or not. But this lapse of control/judgement/whatever is an integral part of Hank Pym's history, and Marvel has explicitly chosen not to retcon that at all, despite having several mega-arcs that could have absolved him of it.

See the part below for my explanation of why that one incident doesn't make Hank Pym a terrible person - it makes him a realistic person. I'll let this drop now, and won't continue this argument without some especially significant data.

In the past, when talking about comics with friends, and especially talking about the differences between Marvel and DC, one of the key points that I make, right up front, is the overall feel of the comics. DC's heroes can, for the most part, be described as gods among men (not literally, of course). Marvel's heroes, on the other hand, is normal, everyday people with super-powers. They have their strengths, their weaknesses, their foibles, their flaws. It's hard to find a Superman story where the story is about Superman making a huge mistake (physically, socially, emotionally, whatever), and having to scramble to fix the problem - it's almost always someone else doing things that Superman has to prevent, repair, or undo. The same can be said for Batman - outside of non-con stories like DKR, it's very hard to find examples of Batman simply making a dreadful mistake and suffering or repairing the consequences. His biggest failures are the result of being out-manipulated by Joker, or Hush, or Bane.

In contrast, Marvel characters practically live in their mistakes. There are tons of stories where two hero groups start fighting because they misread what the other's doing. There are lots of issues where the heroes argue over less-important things (and not just the contrarian hero, like DC's Guy Gardner), or have doubts about what they're doing. There are lots of examples of heroes going into the moral grey zone - and I'm not just talking about Punisher or Wolverine, here.

And this, I think, is part of why DC's having a hard time doing the movies. Black-and-white morality works fine for half-hour mini-stories; it's a lot harder to do over a 2-hour movie. In contrast, Marvel's "shades of grey" morality is much harder to do in half-hour non-sequential  TV episodes, but shines in full-length movies.

On an entirely different matter: If anyone wants a really, really good DC Elseworlds story set in the 1980's character-era, featuring many, many characters, go pick up The Nail. If you liked that era, when it had lost the idealistic flair of the 1970's comics, but hadn't yet been tipped over into the grim-dark aspects of the 1990's, then you'll love this book. It is my favorite Elseworlds book, ever.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Well, the shows based on DC comics tend to involve a lot of flawed heroes.  So I think whoever is producing Arrow, for instance, is definitely taking that problem into account.  Oliver Queen in the television show is pretty much wrestling with his own mistakes throughout the series, while also dealing with what others are doing.  I do understand the God among men statement though, as even there the character comes off as superhuman even though we are told he is perfectly normal, just well conditioned and trained.

[Mathim]

I would actually like to see the version of Hank Pym who did lose control in one instance and did something he regrets to Janet, and even if she never forgives him personally, I'd want to see Hank finding redemption throughout the rest of the movie. Tony Stark had to face the regret of enabling terrorists to murder untold numbers of people and the blood was on his hands, and even with all his alcohol-fueled antics, he is still most everyone's favorite. This kind of ethical detachment people seem to have is the very reason why they should take a risk and go with something so controversial, just to expand people's consciousness. The Ultimates version actually went way beyond a simple bitch-slap and black eye, but I'm not sure how that affected fans compared to the original incident this was based on, but it's hard to say anything good about it when they decided to dig that up and ravage the corpse, as it were.

Anyway, while I would have preferred to see the Flash on the big screen, it looks like his Arrow spin-off show is all we're going to be getting since he apparently won't be appearing in BvS (as of yet). Him being my favorite DC hero, this news disappoints me a bit but considering we're going to be seeing both the X-Men version of Quicksilver and the Avengers version of him before any Hollywood-generated Flash, he'll probably end up being nothing special even when the actual full-fledged Justice League movie does come out.

Since the Marvel Cinematic Universe has already branched out to television, I was wondering what people thought of the Daredevil series that's coming out at some point. They apparently are going to be just going straight in with 13 episodes without even waiting to see what people think of the pilot episode, to 'encourage binge watching'. I mean, I'm all about binge watching, but is that really a good idea? Is this presumption unwarranted (unlike the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel being announced even before they knew how much the first movie was going to make) or do you think it looks good enough that most viewers (and a significant enough amount of them to make up that population) will actually enjoy it?

[Chris Brady]

The Ultimates version actually went way beyond a simple bitch-slap and black eye, but I'm not sure how that affected fans compared to the original incident this was based on, but it's hard to say anything good about it when they decided to dig that up and ravage the corpse, as it were.

There were lots of knowing nods, as their mistaken belief was vindicated.

In 616, Hank Pym hit Janet ONCE.  Just A SINGLE TIME, and yet, he's labeled a wife beater, despite the fact that they weren't even married at the time, nor did he do it anymore.  In fact, Reed Richards has hit Susan several more times, and it's not even mentioned ever, or no one ever bats an eye.

A wife beater is someone who does it repeatedly, and uses pity tactics to keep their wives in check.  Hank in the 616 never did, in fact, when he snapped out, I believe he was horrified, and even when he had mentally snapped, became delusional, renamed himself to Yellowjacket, and had Wasp conned him into marrying her, Hank Pym never struck her in anger, deliberately.  And he never begged her to stay with him.  She was the one who pursued him.

But everyone assumes that because THEY BELIEVE, it's canon.

Since the Marvel Cinematic Universe has already branched out to television, I was wondering what people thought of the Daredevil series that's coming out at some point. They apparently are going to be just going straight in with 13 episodes without even waiting to see what people think of the pilot episode, to 'encourage binge watching'. I mean, I'm all about binge watching, but is that really a good idea? Is this presumption unwarranted.

The issue I have with the Daredevil series is that the main actor is Charlie Cox, a man whose done Romantic Comedy movies.  I'm hoping he had some body building exercising.  But it's an iffy for me, as DD is one of my favourite Marvel characters.  As for binge watching, I'm...  I actually rather like doing it.  I HATE waiting for the next episode.  But again, I have ADHD tendencies so binging is rather common for me.

[Top Cat]

Daredevil's one of those heroes that seems to be a love-him-or-hate-him situation, and as such, any movie, TV show, or whatever that they make with him as the protagonist is going to be hit-or-miss... they either need to have a fantastic writer/group or writers and a very good director, or it's just not going to be very good. See the Daredevil movie. ::) I don't think that they did a good job of giving the viewers a good feel of who Matt Murdock was, or why he became a part-time vigilante.

And, sadly, he's not a very deep, complex character*, although he's had plenty of interesting stories and character development over the years. While I think he'd make a great choice for a hero team, ironically his personality is far enough on the "loner" scale that he wouldn't be willing to join a group. I can't think of any team-ups that Darerdevil has been a part of that wasn't more than a couple of issues... I can't recall him ever joining the Avengers or Defenders...

That's not to say that Daredevil is in any way a bad hero (he's not, and at least two of my friends consider him one of their favorites), but he's not an easy hero to translate from one media to another.

* Rather, I should say, "not always presented as a complex character." He's certainly had his moments that were every bit as good as Spider-Man's ongoing life-of-comedy-and-tragedy.

[Chris Brady]

Daredevil is a complex character, that's the real issue.  Like Batman, there's a lot of depth that's been built up over the years.  But unlike Batman, he's never been that popular for the writers to fully focus on.

[Mathim]

Daredevil's one of those heroes that seems to be a love-him-or-hate-him situation, and as such, any movie, TV show, or whatever that they make with him as the protagonist is going to be hit-or-miss... they either need to have a fantastic writer/group or writers and a very good director, or it's just not going to be very good. See the Daredevil movie. ::) I don't think that they did a good job of giving the viewers a good feel of who Matt Murdock was, or why he became a part-time vigilante.

And, sadly, he's not a very deep, complex character*, although he's had plenty of interesting stories and character development over the years. While I think he'd make a great choice for a hero team, ironically his personality is far enough on the "loner" scale that he wouldn't be willing to join a group. I can't think of any team-ups that Darerdevil has been a part of that wasn't more than a couple of issues... I can't recall him ever joining the Avengers or Defenders...

That's not to say that Daredevil is in any way a bad hero (he's not, and at least two of my friends consider him one of their favorites), but he's not an easy hero to translate from one media to another.

* Rather, I should say, "not always presented as a complex character." He's certainly had his moments that were every bit as good as Spider-Man's ongoing life-of-comedy-and-tragedy.

I liked the Daredevil movie (hated Elektra's movie, though) so that's always been plenty for me. I never thought doing anything more with him, unless it included Stick and Elektra as part of it, would be a good idea but here he is getting a whole multi-episode series. Hopefully it being given a place within the wider MCU will help it, cameos always help even if it is pandering at its core. And I remember him being the ringleader of a team in the Ultimate Comics Spiderman stories, though it did only last a short while.

I'd like to see him being played in a darker way, sort of the MCU's version of Batman, except I want him to be the kind of hero who won't be squeamish about killing his enemies like in the movie at the beginning with that dude in the subway tunnel. None of the other MCU top-line heroes so far are quite that sinister or vindictive so Daredevil is their opportunity to do something like that without resorting to using the Punisher. Not that I would object to an episode where the two of those bad boys team up!

[Chris Brady]

I too liked the DD movie.  And DD is complex, in a way that you can't focus into a 2 hour movie.

[Mathim]

I too liked the DD movie.  And DD is complex, in a way that you can't focus into a 2 hour movie.

I thought it was plenty, but if they want to add more complexity to the series, I'm all for it. I just hated how Spiderman was such a crybaby sad sack in the movies while Daredevil was the real one who deserved to be the tragic hero of Marvel.

[ShadowSlider]

I thought it was plenty, but if they want to add more complexity to the series, I'm all for it. I just hated how Spiderman was such a crybaby sad sack in the movies while Daredevil was the real one who deserved to be the tragic hero of Marvel.

You might want to check out the new  Amazing Spider-Man movies. Andrew Garfield plays a much better Spider-Man than Toby, and while his Peter Parker isn't half as overtly nerdy and awkward, he's also not nearly as much of a cry baby.

[Top Cat]

You might want to check out the new  Amazing Spider-Man movies. Andrew Garfield plays a much better Spider-Man than Toby, and while his Peter Parker isn't half as overtly nerdy and awkward, he's also not nearly as much of a cry baby.

I'll second that. Both Stella and I much prefer Andrew Garfield to Toby McQuire for both Spider-Man and Peter Parker roles.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

I agree, this Spider-Man is much better than the previous.  There is definitely a touch of the comedic there mixed with a very dark sense of the world.

[Mathim]

I felt that Andrew Garfield's performance was in fact much weaker than Maguire's. In fact I don't think Garfield is any sort of capable actor and this shortcoming heavily damaged the film. Even if they had written Peter Parker's character to be more in line with the comics I don't think he could have pulled it off. He's got this weird thing where he comes across as so insincere on screen, it really reminds me of Owen Wilson whom I hate for that very same reason. So no, the Amazing Spiderman is not a remedy for the lackluster original trilogy.

[Vorian]

I felt that Andrew Garfield's performance was in fact much weaker than Maguire's. In fact I don't think Garfield is any sort of capable actor and this shortcoming heavily damaged the film. Even if they had written Peter Parker's character to be more in line with the comics I don't think he could have pulled it off. He's got this weird thing where he comes across as so insincere on screen, it really reminds me of Owen Wilson whom I hate for that very same reason. So no, the Amazing Spiderman is not a remedy for the lackluster original trilogy.

+1

Amazing Spiderman felt more like they were trying to be Batman Begins and failing at it than a Spiderman movie.

[ShadowSlider]

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I just found this article on IGN that Ben Kingsley *MIGHT* come back to play the real Mandarin.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/27/sir-ben-kingsley-trevor-slattery-could-be-the-mandarin-after-all

My two cents? I would absolutely love to see the real Mandarin brought to life, and now that my ignorance of Kingsley's heritage has been fixed, I'd be more than open to him returning. They would just need to offer a REALLY good in-story explanation for it.

[Mathim]

I'm afraid it's too late. I've been burned more badly than a victim of an Extremis soldier attack by Iron Man 3. Even if Kingsley did return to play a dead ringer for Trevor Slattery, I'm no longer interested. I'm still trying to remove Shane Black's middle finger from my anus.

[TheGlyphstone]

Eh, one more opening night seat for the rest of us.

[Mathim]

I never go opening night. I actually went to IM3 on the Sunday after it started and the theater was pleasantly empty for the first showing. I did the same thing when Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out, and had to resist the urge to strangle a 6-year-old and his dipshit mother (who had no business bringing a kid that young to a PG-13 movie in the first place) because they wouldn't shut the fuck up, and the theater was packed so there was nowhere better to move to. I'll always wait 2 weeks from now on to attend big blockbusters.

I don't even know what they could possibly be planning for Iron Man 4 that would be any good. You'd have a huge pissed off audience from the last film so even if they did bring back the Mandarin for real, a lot of the appeal would be lost. They didn't introduce Ezekiel Stane which could have been a good way to bring in Technovore or something. It'd probably be best if they just stopped making sequel once they hit 3 and just have Iron Man be part of the Guardians of the Galaxy later on like in the comics.

[Neysha]

They got RDJ to sign to a fourth Ironman? I am happy and will likely watch it regardless in theaters since Marvel Studios worse MCU movies are still pretty good. . :)

[TheGlyphstone]

They got RDJ to sign to a fourth Ironman? I am happy and will likely watch it regardless in theaters since Marvel Studios worse MCU movies are still pretty good. . :)

Not as of 1 day ago, at least.

http://airherald.com/iron-man-4-robert-downey-jr-and-gwyneth-paltrow-consider-leaving-fans-pick-their-options/7468/

[Mathim]

They got RDJ to sign to a fourth Ironman? I am happy and will likely watch it regardless in theaters since Marvel Studios worse MCU movies are still pretty good. . :)

I liked all the MCU movies, with that one exception; I really don't think of them in terms of 'worst' or best either since so far, every Phase 2 film has greatly exceeded my expectations in terms of engaging and entertaining me. I thought Iron Man 2 which has a pretty negative reputation as well is still leaps and bounds better than 3.

DC has regretfully done nothing to entice me to see any of their stuff in 3D (did it for Green Lantern, regretted it; not convinced it'll be worth it for anything else from DC) and I think Nolan failing to do that probably hasn't helped people warm up to doing 3D for DC comics movies the way it seems to be working for Marvel. Man of Steel, which I only saw on the small screen, still didn't strike me as something I would have liked any better in 3D, either.

[Slywyn]

It's probably already been pointed out:

Trevor Slattery was not playing the actual Mandarin, nor was he portrayed as such. He was an actor using an image and name for a purpose. This is even covered in one of the Marvel shorts.

Slattery is broken out of prison by the actual Mandarin's men because the Mandarin is not very happy that someone would use his name. So the real Mandarin has yet to make an appearance, but might do so.

[Mathim]

It's probably already been pointed out:

Trevor Slattery was not playing the actual Mandarin, nor was he portrayed as such. He was an actor using an image and name for a purpose. This is even covered in one of the Marvel shorts.

Slattery is broken out of prison by the actual Mandarin's men because the Mandarin is not very happy that someone would use his name. So the real Mandarin has yet to make an appearance, but might do so.

Yup. We know. The chief complaint is that the trailer prepped us for something that never happened. If Kingsley is going to play the 'real' Mandarin on the second outing, I'm saying that's not a good enough apology for the first slight.

[Slywyn]

Yup. We know. The chief complaint is that the trailer prepped us for something that never happened. If Kingsley is going to play the 'real' Mandarin on the second outing, I'm saying that's not a good enough apology for the first slight.

What slight though? You should have known as soon as you saw him that it wasn't the real Mandarin. And now the actual Mandarin is going to take back his name.

[Mathim]

What slight though? You should have known as soon as you saw him that it wasn't the real Mandarin. And now the actual Mandarin is going to take back his name.

You mean from the trailers way before the actual movie came out, when we first saw him? How the hell were we supposed to know that far ahead that he was just a figurehead? He's still even on the posters and DVD cover. The fact that they faked us out just to play about the weakest joke and put a completely inferior villain in his place was, in essence, the slight. Them asking for a 'second chance' to cover up this embarrassing mistake they ought to have known better to make in the first place is just asking too much. I know I'm beating a dead horse by now, so...yeah.

[ShadowSlider]

You mean from the trailers way before the actual movie came out, when we first saw him? How the hell were we supposed to know that far ahead that he was just a figurehead? He's still even on the posters and DVD cover. The fact that they faked us out just to play about the weakest joke and put a completely inferior villain in his place was, in essence, the slight. Them asking for a 'second chance' to cover up this embarrassing mistake they ought to have known better to make in the first place is just asking too much. I know I'm beating a dead horse by now, so...yeah.

So that doesn't make you even more eager to see them do it right? I mean, I totally get where you're coming from. Venom was, is, and likely always will be my favorite Spider-Man villain and he got screwed over big time in Spider-Man 3, but as pissed off as his treatment in that film made me, it also made me want to see the "real" Venom that much more.

[Slywyn]

You mean from the trailers way before the actual movie came out, when we first saw him? How the hell were we supposed to know that far ahead that he was just a figurehead? He's still even on the posters and DVD cover. The fact that they faked us out just to play about the weakest joke and put a completely inferior villain in his place was, in essence, the slight. Them asking for a 'second chance' to cover up this embarrassing mistake they ought to have known better to make in the first place is just asking too much. I know I'm beating a dead horse by now, so...yeah.

Isn't that kind of the point though? Build him up as a villain only to reveal he's just a figurehead at the hands of someone else? I don't see how that's a slight, or even a mistake. That's pretty brilliant advertising. Now they can bring in the actual Mandarin, I don't see how you should be anything other than, you know, excited.

[Vorian]

So that doesn't make you even more eager to see them do it right? I mean, I totally get where you're coming from. Venom was, is, and likely always will be my favorite Spider-Man villain and he got screwed over big time in Spider-Man 3, but as pissed off as his treatment in that film made me, it also made me want to see the "real" Venom that much more.

Ah, Venom ... I really think he'll take two movies to do right, one to play out the black suit against another villain and build up Eddie properly, and one with Venom as the main focus. As much as they packed into Amazing Spiderman 2, I have my doubts that it'll happen this time around either.

[TheGlyphstone]

Isn't that kind of the point though? Build him up as a villain only to reveal he's just a figurehead at the hands of someone else? I don't see how that's a slight, or even a mistake. That's pretty brilliant advertising. Now they can bring in the actual Mandarin, I don't see how you should be anything other than, you know, excited.

Mathim dislikes movies that don't spoil the plot twist in the trailers, evidently.

[ShadowSlider]

Ah, Venom ... I really think he'll take two movies to do right, one to play out the black suit against another villain and build up Eddie properly, and one with Venom as the main focus. As much as they packed into Amazing Spiderman 2, I have my doubts that it'll happen this time around either.

I dunno, that kinda seems like the route they've taken with the Green Goblin. ASM 2 seemed to be mostly an origin story for him so that he can spend the entirety of his next movie as just the Green Goblin. Still, I have my doubts as well, considering the plan this time is apparently to introduce Venom in a solo movie first, and then do who-knows-what with him later. I don't know WTF they're thinking with this setup, and that's honestly what worries me. But, who knows, they could very well surprise me. All I really care about is that they make him the true badass that he really is. He should be presented as the ultimate physical threat to Spider-Man, and so long as they do that (and don't fuck up his look), I'll be happy.

Well, that and not having him play buddy-villain with anyone else. Him teaming up with Sandman was so stupid. Venom is more than capable of defeating Spider-Man on his own.

[Vorian]

I haven't seen Amazing Spiderman 2 yet so I can't really judge it, but even the first one seemed a bit rushed and incomplete to me. I'm hoping it improves but I'm highly skeptical for now.

Well, that and not having him play buddy-villain with anyone else. Him teaming up with Sandman was so stupid. Venom is more than capable of defeating Spider-Man on his own.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the Sandman was only there because they also tried to cram in the full plot with Harry. They could have gotten 3 movies out of everything they tried to cram into one and had a much better product. Something along the lines of Symbiote-Peter vs Goblin-Harry, then a straight up Venom movie, and a Sinister Six or at least Norman's return for the team up with Harry somewhere down the line. But instead we got the half-assed mess that was Spiderman 3.

[Mathim]

Mathim dislikes movies that don't spoil the plot twist in the trailers, evidently.

Don't make assumptions about me or I'll make some about you and you REALLY won't like 'em. Let's keep our slanderous comments to the celebs and filmmakers, shall we?

The Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest nemesis and has the chutzpah and power to back up that reputation. If they wanted to wait to utilize the Mandarin, that would have been fine, I'd have waited while Tony got some more practice in on some less-worthy opponent if I was prepared for it. Or hell, don't even give me a clue as to who the damn villain is (like the very first Iron Man 2 trailer where it wasn't clear about Whiplash, all we really saw was him getting chased down by the drones). I don't like them teasing his ultimate foe and then pulling the South Park style gag where they did a Terrance and Philip episode instead of showing the conclusion of finding out who Eric Cartman's father was. As it has been said before-All Hail the King was that ass-kissing response to the negative feedback to their treatment of the Mandarin character. The only reason they'd ever bring in the 'real' Mandarin is because they totally screwed up the delivery the first time.

I mean, they're making enough capital that they can afford to make mistakes and still not lose out, but that's no reason to snub the fans like that. I don't want to just like these films, I want to RESPECT them as well. And respect has to be mutual. They seriously damaged that relationship with their decision to let Shane Black do what he wanted.

[Vorian]

I'm more or less with Mathim on Iron Man 3 - I do like a lot of what they did with it, but slapping the Mandarin's name on it was an unnecessary cheap stunt and made it hard to enjoy the movie on it's own terms.

[Mathim]

Shane Black even defends his decision on it; he's not sorry at all or regretful about it. That's kind of the worst insult.

[Vorian]

It didn't even really make sense in universe - there really wasn't much if any name recognition to capitalize on, and if there was a real Mandarin with a scary reputation, who'd also kept his activities that quiet, what kind of idiot would really risk pissing the guy off on such a personal level just for the sake of a distraction? It really just made Killian seem that much less credible as an intelligent villain.

[Chris Brady]

It didn't even really make sense in universe - there really wasn't much if any name recognition to capitalize on, and if there was a real Mandarin with a scary reputation, who'd also kept his activities that quiet, what kind of idiot would really risk pissing the guy off on such a personal level just for the sake of a distraction? It really just made Killian seem that much less credible as an intelligent villain.

Kinda like Hammer, eh?

[Vorian]

Kinda, except we were never supposed to take Hammer seriously.

[Chris Brady]

Kinda, except we were never supposed to take Hammer seriously.

And he's supposed to be Stark Industries main rival (according to the movie, at any rate)?  He was never a threat, he was a joke.

[Vorian]

And he's supposed to be Stark Industries main rival (according to the movie, at any rate)?  He was never a threat, he was a joke.

Well, he thought he was Stark's main rival anyway, I don't think anyone else seriously believed that. I'm not familiar with him from the comics, but from the movie I got the impression he inherited the company from someone more competent and lucked out on Tony getting out of the weapons business before he ran it into the ground. Either way he was never the main villain, he was a plot device to give the main villain more resources and access to the War Machine armor. He really just isn't that big a deal in the movie or the comics, so any mishandling of his character there might have been was far less damaging than with the Mandarin.

[consortium11]

Well, he thought he was Stark's main rival anyway, I don't think anyone else seriously believed that. I'm not familiar with him from the comics, but from the movie I got the impression he inherited the company from someone more competent and lucked out on Tony getting out of the weapons business before he ran it into the ground. Either way he was never the main villain, he was a plot device to give the main villain more resources and access to the War Machine armor. He really just isn't that big a deal in the movie or the comics, so any mishandling of his character there might have been was far less damaging than with the Mandarin.

Justin Hammer was a pretty integral part of two of the most influential and iconic Iron Man storylines (some may well suggest the most influential and iconic); I don't think his importance in the Iron Man rogues gallery can be brushed away quite so easily.

[Vorian]

Justin Hammer was a pretty integral part of two of the most influential and iconic Iron Man storylines (some may well suggest the most influential and iconic); I don't think his importance in the Iron Man rogues gallery can be brushed away quite so easily.

Fair enough, he has zero name recognition to me so any impact he might have had in the comics I wouldn't know about. So I probably am dismissing him a bit too lightly. Compared to the Mandarin though? No one else is both that much of a threat, and has that much history with Iron Man, and wasting that just to make their fake terrorist seem more dangerous to the audience (and just the audience, not in universe) is lazy writing on a whole new level. Even if they do try to salvage it later saying there's a real Mandarin still out there.

[Chris Brady]

I honestly had no idea that Justin Hammer was actually important to the IM comic, I haven't read on in decades.  The issue I have is that for a company that was supposed to be a threat to Stark Enterprises, nothing that we were shown hinted at it.  We were expected to assume that we'd know that Hammer was somehow good enough.  Instead it was nothing but a gag reel.

[Vorian]

I don't think we were supposed to believe Hammer was a serious rival to Stark, it was pretty obvious from the start that he was far behind Stark and trying to be bigger than he was. He's just the next best thing with Stark out of the weapon business.

Either way I don't think any failings with Hammer really undermine Vanko's credibility as a villain, but to me slapping the Mandarin's name on that farce in Iron Man 3 undermined Killian's. Iron Man 3 really needed a strong villain, not an idiot with a petty grudge and a big ego. The more I think about it, the more I think a real Mandarin movie would have been perfect for Tony's development at that time, and the AIM crap could have been left to Agents of SHIELD to develop over the first half of the season. That would have given them a stronger plot anyway.

[Kwiehtyp3]

Just a small correction that somebody may have already mention. The two highest grossing films of all time are Avatar and Titanic, both with over 2 billion dollars. If you Include home video sales, each made over 3 billion dollars. Titanic made another 55m for television broadcasting rights.

[Mathim]

Even if Hammer was supposed to be a credible villain, he'd just be a clone of Obadiah Stane. Seriously, he'd pay someone else to engineer a suit of armor FOR him, to get Tony out of the way so they could be the king of the hill. At least Vanko had the talent to make his own and customize it to use his signature whips (would have loved to see him try it with a four-armed suit) and had a vendetta against Tony so strong he was willing to make a suicide attack out of it. He didn't care about money or anything, and while that's a great motivation for a villain, being utterly hell-bent on the obliteration of his hated enemy, they didn't go deeply enough into it. If they'd given more time to developing Vanko as a character and villain, that would have made Iron Man 2 a whole lot better. That, and he ought to have had an actual suit built for the battle at Monaco. Seriously, him not having any armor on at all was just kinda...pathetic. Don't tell me that whip let him have the strength to manhandle Suitcase Armor Man, that was so lame.

Not only is the Mandarin a credible villain with much more far-reaching goals and abilities, but he's not an American businessman or someone with a petty grudge; the perfect new archetype villain that could have started off Phase 2. And they blowed it.

[ShadowSlider]

Even if Hammer was supposed to be a credible villain, he'd just be a clone of Obadiah Stane. Seriously, he'd pay someone else to engineer a suit of armor FOR him, to get Tony out of the way so they could be the king of the hill. At least Vanko had the talent to make his own and customize it to use his signature whips (would have loved to see him try it with a four-armed suit) and had a vendetta against Tony so strong he was willing to make a suicide attack out of it. He didn't care about money or anything, and while that's a great motivation for a villain, being utterly hell-bent on the obliteration of his hated enemy, they didn't go deeply enough into it. If they'd given more time to developing Vanko as a character and villain, that would have made Iron Man 2 a whole lot better. That, and he ought to have had an actual suit built for the battle at Monaco. Seriously, him not having any armor on at all was just kinda...pathetic. Don't tell me that whip let him have the strength to manhandle Suitcase Armor Man, that was so lame.

Not only is the Mandarin a credible villain with much more far-reaching goals and abilities, but he's not an American businessman or someone with a petty grudge; the perfect new archetype villain that could have started off Phase 2. And they blowed it.

Yeah, I actually went back and watched Iron Man 3 again last night, and it made me realize two things. One, I'm REALLY glad Marvel made it so this Mandarin was the fake one, because I thought this was a stupidly sudden introduction for him. And two, they really shouldn't have tried to do Extremis and Mandarin in the same movie. I actually really, really like the Extremis parts of the story, and Killian's plot to "own the war on terror" actually makes a lot of sense given the more business-oriented aspect of the previous two Iron Man films. But shoe-horning in the Mandarin like that? Ulgh, no.

I think they should've either cut the Mandarin out entirely and focused all that extra time to better develop the "We create our own demons" and "Does the suit make the man, or does the man make the suit" themes, or just make a straight up Mandarin movie and have Extremis be a sub-plot that allows Tony to finally get the upper-hand on his enemy after being completely manhandled in their first fight.

I think the only real upside to the Mandarin being used in Iron Man 3 is that when they inevitably make a movie with the Real Mandarin (and let's face it, after All Hail the King, it is inevitable), he won't just be some random terrorist that we've never heard about before (within the context of the films).

[Mathim]

I actually wrote a script that would have neatly tied both the Mandarin and Extremis in the same movie without over-cluttering it (I also wrote a similar one for Spider-Man 2 where it had both the Lizard and Doc Ock). You just have to care enough. ;D  I can't help but also mention one last gripe about IM3 that no one else has brought up yet: Characters like Ellen Brandt who have connections to other comic characters and stories, was way out of place the movie and was essentially a wasted fodder character. Same thing with Chen Lu, who is supposed to be supervillain Radioactive Man, also being shoved into the background and not given his proper due. What a waste of potential. I wish they'd stop name-dropping these people (the Mandarin fake-out was bad enough, after all) who are totally being misused and/or have no business being in these movies this soon anyway. It's like the opposite of them failing to utilize characters such as Zeke Stane and others, as if they don't have enough imagination to do proper conversions from print to screen.

Don't look now, but wikipedia's most recent update on the plot description for Age of Ultron gives away WAY more details than I thought it would, so beware before going to look into it if you're not ready to hear about more details about Ultron's origin. The only thing we can say for sure without it being too spoilerific is that it won't be the same as in the comics since he was originally the creation of Ant-Man, and that guy's not even being introduced into the MCU until after Avengers 2.

[TheGlyphstone]

It's like the opposite of them failing to utilize characters such as Zeke Stane and others, as if they don't have enough imagination to do proper conversions from print to screen.

To try and bring this thread vaguely back on-topic...at least this complain is a 'comics movie thing' rather than a 'Marvel thing'. Zsasz got like a 15-second cameo in Batman Begins.

[ShadowSlider]

To try and bring this thread vaguely back on-topic...at least this complain is a 'comics movie thing' rather than a 'Marvel thing'. Zsasz got like a 15-second cameo in Batman Begins.

Eh, I hear you, but given the intentionally more real-world approach Nolan took with his films, I don't think Zsasz as people knew him would have had much of a place in the story. He's just a little too over-the-top and isn't on the same level as Bane, Ra's al Ghul, Joker, Scarecrow, or Catwoman.

What did irritate me was the bullshit drug-dealer cop-out he used with Scarecrow in The Dark Knight. That was a truckload of crap and one of only two real complaints I had with The Dark Knight.

[TheGlyphstone]

I don't even remember Scarecrow being in TDK - had to go look it up on Wikipedia when you mentioned it. Maybe it was worse than it seems on description (I remember fake Batmen with machine guns, and big angry dogs, that's it), but it seems like a logical callback/cameo to BB to have Scarecrow - main-focus big bad of the first movie - reduced to peddling his toxic creations on the black market for petty cash.

[ShadowSlider]

But that's the thing, he wasn't even really the big bad of the first movie. That title goes to Ra's al Ghul. Scarecrow was just his underling for most of the film. He does kinda become Scarecrow at the end, and I was really hoping they were going to do something special with him later on.

Now, I don't bitch that they didn't because the next two films were amazing without him and were honestly better for his lack of involvement, but I just don't understand how he went from a true psycho at the end of Begins, to perfectly sane in TDK.

It's a bit of a minor gripe overall, but it's still the only real one I have against the Nolan trilogy.

[TheGlyphstone]

That is why I specified 'main focus big bad'. Sure, Ra's Al Ghul is technically the man-behind-the-man manipulating the whole thing. But you only find that out in the, like, last 15 minutes of the film. For the rest of it, Scarecrow is the Bad Guy that batman is pitted against, until suddenly he's revealed as the underling...

Y'know, I just recognized the parallels between this aspect of BB and the Trevor/Killain Mandarin thing that drags down Iron Man 3 so badly. Not identical, but similar in the bait-and-switch villain angle. Yet DC/Nolan pull it off to decent acclaim, and Marvel crashbombs it straight into PR disaster.

[Vorian]

Y'know, I just recognized the parallels between this aspect of BB and the Trevor/Killain Mandarin thing that drags down Iron Man 3 so badly. Not identical, but similar in the bait-and-switch villain angle. Yet DC/Nolan pull it off to decent acclaim, and Marvel crashbombs it straight into PR disaster.

Kind of. The big difference is Scarecrow was still Scarecrow even if he was working for someone else, and he's not Batman's nemesis in the same way Mandarin is to Iron Man. Imagine if instead they'd passed off a loser in a clown suit as the Joker, as a front for Hush. In a series that hasn't seen the real Joker yet to give the deception impact in universe.

... Actually that still sounds like it could be better than Iron Man 3 if done well. But it'd be bound to piss off some fans.

[TheGlyphstone]

Kind of. The big difference is Scarecrow was still Scarecrow even if he was working for someone else, and he's not Batman's nemesis in the same way Mandarin is to Iron Man. Imagine if instead they'd passed off a loser in a clown suit as the Joker, as a front for Hush. In a series that hasn't seen the real Joker yet to give the deception impact in universe.

... Actually that still sounds like it could be better than Iron Man 3 if done well. But it'd be bound to piss off some fans.

Like I said. Same core elements, vastly better execution.

Admittedly, Batman doesn't really have a 'core nemesis' equivalent to Mandarin. Joker is one of his more prominent ones, but his rogues' gallery is pretty diverse. Comparatively, Tony has The Mandarin, and a big long list of 'Dude With Power Armor' bad guys.

[Vorian]

Like I said. Same core elements, vastly better execution.

Admittedly, Batman doesn't really have a 'core nemesis' equivalent to Mandarin. Joker is one of his more prominent ones, but his rogues' gallery is pretty diverse. Comparatively, Tony has The Mandarin, and a big long list of 'Dude With Power Armor' bad guys.

True, True. Batman has one of the strongest rogues galleries, and Iron Man's is fairly weak overall. But the Joker is the one who's most personal for both of them, I think, and always the first who comes to mind for me. I'd have a harder time pinning down a single main villain for Spiderman personally.

[TheGlyphstone]

True, True. Batman has one of the strongest rogues galleries, and Iron Man's is fairly weak overall. But the Joker is the one who's most personal for both of them, I think, and always the first who comes to mind for me. I'd have a harder time pinning down a single main villain for Spiderman personally.

My mind instantly jumped to Green Goblin as the 'iconic' Spidey villain.

Superman has Lex Luthor.

Fantastic 4 have Doctor Doom.

Green Lantern has.....uh....Yellow Lantern? Or any street thug with a baseball bat, depending on which iteration of GL you use.

[Vorian]

My mind instantly jumped to Green Goblin as the 'iconic' Spidey villain.

Yeah, probably. But Venom is a very close second in my mind, almost to the point of being a toss up between the two. If only because Venom is an enemy Peter largely created himself.

It also doesn't help that Norman went global/Lex Luthor wannabe lately, to the point were I actually want to see a real showdown between him and Iron Man more than him and Spiderman.

Green Lantern has.....uh....Yellow Lantern?

Sinestro. Or the Guardians depending on how you look at it.

[TheGlyphstone]

Yeah, probably. But Venom is a very close second in my mind, almost to the point of being a toss up between the two. If only because Venom is an enemy Peter largely created himself.

It also doesn't help that Norman went global/Lex Luthor wannabe lately, to the point were I actually want to see a real showdown between him and Iron Man more than him and Spiderman.

Eh. Peter's involvement with Venom's creation is kinda iffy, since he had nothing to do with the creation of the original symbiote; he was just the first unlucky host. But I'll allow Venom as the best runner-up, the way General Zod is Superman's #2 iconic opponent despite him appearing vastly less often than Luthor.

Sinestro. Or the Guardians depending on how you look at it.

Right. That dude.

GL isn't far behind Iron Man in the 'lame rogues' gallery' department, since most of them are 'guy with different colored magic space ring'. Plus, he's has a run of the stupidest power-draining weaknesses (Wood, then the Color Yellow).

[ShadowSlider]

Yeah, probably. But Venom is a very close second in my mind, almost to the point of being a toss up between the two. If only because Venom is an enemy Peter largely created himself.

It also doesn't help that Norman went global/Lex Luthor wannabe lately, to the point were I actually want to see a real showdown between him and Iron Man more than him and Spiderman.

I'll also second Venom, for pretty much the exact same reason. Peter may not have had anything to do with the symbiote, but he had A LOT to do with Eddie Brock.

I'd also second Venom because he's Spider-Man's dark reflection. He's everything Spider-Man would've become if Peter hadn't had the positive influences of his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. On top of that, Venom's ability to nullify Peter's Spider-Sense makes him one of Spider-Man's deadliest enemies by far.

Really, the only reason I would rank Venom below the Green Goblin is because Venom hasn't had the same effect on Peter's personal life. I mean, Gwen Stacy? There's really no topping that.

[Vorian]

I gather it's been retconned since, but the way I heard it in the original story the symbiote wasn't really hostile or particularly dangerous until Peter rather painfully rejected it. So he's kinda responsible for what Venom became from that angle too. It sorta plays into the theme of responsibility in a way that the Goblin doesn't.

But yeah, true about Gwen.

[TheGlyphstone]

fair enough, Venom's got an excellent case - and yeah, without Gwen Stacy, Goblin wouldn't be the lead candidate.

[ShadowSlider]

I gather it's been retconned since, but the way I heard it in the original story the symbiote wasn't really hostile or particularly dangerous until Peter rather painfully rejected it. So he's kinda responsible for what Venom became from that angle too. It sorta plays into the theme of responsibility in a way that the Goblin doesn't.

But yeah, true about Gwen.

The big reason Peter rejected the symbiote was because it was amplifying his aggression and was starting to turn him into what Venom ultimately became. So while his rejection of it DID give it a grudge and a reason to want revenge, the symbiote has still always been dangerous on its own.

[Vorian]

The big reason Peter rejected the symbiote was because it was amplifying his aggression and was starting to turn him into what Venom ultimately became. So while his rejection of it DID give it a grudge and a reason to want revenge, the symbiote has still always been dangerous on its own.

See, that's just it - I've heard that was added in after the fact (or in an adaptation, I forget) to to justify Peter's rejection of it. Originally all it was doing running around as Spiderman at night and he rejected it as soon as he found out it was alive without stopping to think or attempt to communicate. There's a pretty good run down of it here. Of course each new adaptation ramps up the hostility of the symbiote even more.

[ShadowSlider]

See, that's just it - I've heard that was added in after the fact (or in an adaptation, I forget) to to justify Peter's rejection of it. Originally all it was doing running around as Spiderman at night and he rejected it as soon as he found out it was alive without stopping to think or attempt to communicate. There's a pretty good run down of it here. Of course each new adaptation ramps up the hostility of the symbiote even more.

Huh. Well, that's what I get for going by the 90's cartoon. :P

[TheGlyphstone]

And this is one of the flaws of Marvel-style soft continuity vs. DC's periodic hard reboots. Retcons stack on top of retcons.

[Top Cat]

See, that's just it - I've heard that was added in after the fact (or in an adaptation, I forget) to to justify Peter's rejection of it. Originally all it was doing running around as Spiderman at night and he rejected it as soon as he found out it was alive without stopping to think or attempt to communicate. There's a pretty good run down of it here. Of course each new adaptation ramps up the hostility of the symbiote even more.

Nah. I was reading Spider-Man at the time, and the writers definitely wrote in that it was taking control of Peter's body and making him more of a loose cannon. Going to sleep at home, in bed, and waking up on the side of a skyscraper wasn't just written for the movie... that's comic-canon, too. It wasn't just that it was alive, but that it was gradually trying to take over his body that made Peter try to get rid of it.

Wiki description of the events:

Writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz subsequently established that the costume was a sentient alien symbiote and also that it was vulnerable to both flame and high sonic energy during their run on The Amazing Spider-Man. It was in that storyline that the costume would envelop Peter Parker while he slept, and go out at night to fight crime, leaving Parker inexplicably exhausted in the morning. Parker had the costume examined by Reed Richards, who discovered that it was alive, and when Parker realized it was trying to permanently bond to Parker's body, he rejects it, and it is contained by the Fantastic Four. The Symbiote escapes and attacks Parker, who uses the sound waves from a cathedral's church bell to repel it.

When combined with Eddie Brock, who already had a significant (one-sided) grudge against Peter Parker (and was already a bit mentally warped), it became decidedly unhinged, since both symbiote and host wanted to kill Peter at that point.

Over the subsequent story arcs, it's been established that the symbiote is amoral at least, if not outright pathological. While being worn by Mac Gargan (Scorpion), it more or less took over for large portions of time, and had Mac engage in cannibalism (something that Mac, as vicious as he was, wouldn't have done by choice).

[Vorian]

Over the subsequent story arcs, it's been established that the symbiote is amoral at least, if not outright pathological. While being worn by Mac Gargan (Scorpion), it more or less took over for large portions of time, and had Mac engage in cannibalism (something that Mac, as vicious as he was, wouldn't have done by choice).

Amoral sure, but it's also been well established both in the main continuity and in the Spidergirl universe that the personality of the host has a major impact on that - a vicious host makes a vicious symbiote, a heroic host makes a more heroic symbiote, even to the point of self sacrifice. And this is a sentient being we're talking about here, one who can be very beneficial to a host. I wouldn't say Peter was wrong to reject it, but there were much better ways to handle the situation that weren't even attempted and it resulted in a major problem for Peter out of something that could have been a positive. It goes back to the theme of responsibility - instead of resolving the situation peacefully or even ensuring the symbiote was contained or destroyed, he hurt it in a rather brutal fashion and let it loose on the world. Venom is largely what Peter made of it.

Edit: I also feel that even with the symbiote directly amping up his aggression the way adaptations of it usually do, Peter still handled the situation badly. His actions were understandable, and something had to be done about it, but once you realize that the symbiote is sentient and how traumatic what Peter did to it was, so is the symbiote's reaction. Things could have played out very differently if he'd gone to Xavier for help instead of Reed Richards.

[Mathim]

All this does is prove the point that Sam Raimi shouldn't be blamed for being forced to shoehorn Venom into Spiderman 3 and ruin the whole thing. Not that I was that satisfied with the movie even before that, but yeah.

And holy fucking shit, Guardians of the Galaxy has made over 550 million worldwide! Amazing! I hope it'll hit the 600M mark since then it'll be at least within sprinting distance of the other Phase 2 films that didn't perform as well as IM3. I also have some questions for everyone but I don't think there's a way to make a poll that would cover all of them so I'll just ask them here:

1. Do you think that the negative reaction to Iron Man 3 is the reason why the other Phase 2 films did not earn anywhere close to what Iron Man 3 earned?
2. Do you think post-credits scenes should depict possible future events or just add a supplemental humorous or more closure-oriented feeling?
3. Do you feel that Green Lantern should be included (at least partially) in the now-expanding DC cinematic universe since his film came before Man of Steel?

[Vorian]

1. Do you think that the negative reaction to Iron Man 3 is the reason why the other Phase 2 films did not earn anywhere close to what Iron Man 3 earned?

Seems likely. I know I initially skipped Thor 2 because of it and only gave the Winter Soldier a chance because I really liked what I was seeing and hearing about it.

2. Do you think post-credits scenes should depict possible future events or just add a supplemental humorous or more closure-oriented feeling?

More to tease future events or provide closure, I think. Guardian's of the Galaxy's was kinda a waste in my opinion.

3. Do you feel that Green Lantern should be included (at least partially) in the now-expanding DC cinematic universe since his film came before Man of Steel?

Frankly I don't even think Man of Steel should be included in the DC movie 'verse, it makes even Iron Man 3 look good by comparison. It's not even that it's a bad Superman movie - it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, period. But it's done, so moving on - I don't think the Green Lantern movie really fits the tone set by Man of Steel.

[Top Cat]

More to tease future events or provide closure, I think. Guardian's of the Galaxy's was kinda a waste in my opinion.

Actually... it may not be. It requires some twisted thinking, but the Howard the Duck post-credit can possibly be a hint at a future movie: Deadpool.

When the Deadpool game was announced at the San Diego Comic Con 2012, they made it a silly spectacle - they started the panel by announcing a Howard the Duck game (which got very strong cheering), before Deadpool* broke into the panel and announced that they were actually making the Deadpool game (complete with the announcement trailer). Here's the video of that panel.

It's been known that Marvel has wanted to make a Deadpool movie for some time, but they've been a little shy about making an R-rated movie. But Deadpool has never been stronger than he is right now, and they know that the window of opportunity won't last forever. They also know that trying to make a Deadpool movie to stay within PG-13 guides would be considered "terrible" by a lot of the fans. So there's definitely some inertia into making that movie, and making it R-rated.

Now, I'm sure you've since heard about the (3-year-old) Deadpool Movie Trailer that was leaked. It happened to be leaked on the same day that Guardians of the Galaxy was released. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that "Howard the Duck" is Marvel's wink-and-nod for Deadpool now.

*Someone dressed and acting as Deadpool, of course.

[Vorian]

Actually... it may not be. It requires some twisted thinking, but the Howard the Duck post-credit can possibly be a hint at a future movie: Deadpool.

There's a big problem with that: Fox still has the rights to Deadpool. Which means even if a Deadpool movie is coming, it won't be MCU and I don't see Marvel doing anything to promote it.

[Top Cat]

There's a big problem with that: Fox still has the rights to Deadpool. Which means even if a Deadpool movie is coming, it won't be MCU and I don't see Marvel doing anything to promote it.

That's not a big problem, as far as they're concerned. Marvel can either work with Fox, or buy back the rights. When money is the only problem, it's not much of a problem.

[Vorian]

That's not a big problem, as far as they're concerned. Marvel can either work with Fox, or buy back the rights. When money is the only problem, it's not much of a problem.

Oh, it's not a problem as far as Fox making the movie goes, necessarily. But it's a big problem for the plausibility of Marvel having anything to do with it in any way, particularly as bad as relations between the two have been lately. I don't get the feeling Fox is looking to sell, either.

[Slywyn]

The Guardians of the Galaxy end credits scene was to show Doctor Strange's cocoon had opened.

Howard the Duck was a red herring.

[TheGlyphstone]

Adam Warlock, not Doctor Strange.

[Slywyn]

Adam Warlock, not Doctor Strange.

w/e. =p I'm not really up on who everyone is.

[TheGlyphstone]

w/e. =p I'm not really up on who everyone is.

I couldn't tell you anything about them, I just remember the names from an earlier discussion.

[Oniya]

A - a superhero inspired by the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar?  O_o

This could go really well, or really badly. 

[TheGlyphstone]

A - a superhero inspired by the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar?  O_o

This could go really well, or really badly.

Huh?

[Chris Brady]

I don't think we were supposed to believe Hammer was a serious rival to Stark, it was pretty obvious from the start that he was far behind Stark and trying to be bigger than he was. He's just the next best thing with Stark out of the weapon business.

If he wasn't half as 'good' as Stark, then he wouldn't have been chosen to replace him.  Justin Hammer was portrayed as so incompetent that no amount of suspension of disbelief allowed me to believe that his shareholders would have allowed him to remain as CEO.  They'd have replaced him with someone better.

He's a joke, and so is his company.  Which ironically, makes Stark Enterprises look like a joke if Hammer is supposed to be a 'threat' financially.  And they were a threat, because they were part of the movie's plot.  Hammer and Stark were put in competition, for some stupid reason.

[Vorian]

If he wasn't half as 'good' as Stark, then he wouldn't have been chosen to replace him.  Justin Hammer was portrayed as so incompetent that no amount of suspension of disbelief allowed me to believe that his shareholders would have allowed him to remain as CEO.  They'd have replaced him with someone better.

Fair enough, but -

He's a joke, and so is his company.  Which ironically, makes Stark Enterprises look like a joke if Hammer is supposed to be a 'threat' financially.  And they were a threat, because they were part of the movie's plot.  Hammer and Stark were put in competition, for some stupid reason.

Hammer was never a threat financially, and was never intended to be. They were only competitors in Hammer's mind. Stark wasn't even in the arms business any more, or they wouldn't have been relying on Hammer.

[Mathim]

Seems likely. I know I initially skipped Thor 2 because of it and only gave the Winter Soldier a chance because I really liked what I was seeing and hearing about it.

More to tease future events or provide closure, I think. Guardian's of the Galaxy's was kinda a waste in my opinion.

Frankly I don't even think Man of Steel should be included in the DC movie 'verse, it makes even Iron Man 3 look good by comparison. It's not even that it's a bad Superman movie - it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, period. But it's done, so moving on - I don't think the Green Lantern movie really fits the tone set by Man of Steel.

Wow, this is so in line with my own thinking I'm kind of freaked out. Though, I didn't think Man of Steel was as bad as all that; I just didn't think it was particularly good at all. It was more of a middle-of-the-road thing, nothing remarkable as far as I'm concerned, but not something I actually disliked.

Hopefully no one is upset about the post-credits GOTG spoilers not being hidden. But in response to the Howard the Duck and Deadpool stuff...
Yeah, Marvel and Fox aren't in the mood to share, hence no mutants allowed in the MCU and so no Wade Wilson making trouble for the Avengers. But James Gunn, director of GOTG pretty much made it clear no Howard the Duck movie would be appearing anytime soon, though he may reappear in the GOTG sequel for another cameo. I'd love to see that, especially if they did a spoof of the Yoda Vs. Dooku battle from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones where little Howard is busting out some Quack Fu on a much larger opponent.

They did confirm that one new member of the Guardians would be making their debut in the sequel, however, and the list of possible peeps is quite short so,

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

if we infer from the previously mentioned cocoon's opening making Adam Warlock emerge, he's pretty much at the top of the list.

But I'd been SO hoping it would be Ms. Marvel who was also a member of the team in the comics. Though speculation has it that she'll be more likely to end up on the Avengers roster than the Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Vorian]

Ah, I didn't catch that bit in the Guardian's post credit scene, good call. I guess I was really just hoping for something from Thanos.

Wow, this is so in line with my own thinking I'm kind of freaked out. Though, I didn't think Man of Steel was as bad as all that; I just didn't think it was particularly good at all. It was more of a middle-of-the-road thing, nothing remarkable as far as I'm concerned, but not something I actually disliked.

I felt like it could have been a great movie if the execution had been better, but it just didn't work for me as is. I didn't get the sense there was any real emotion there at all, the character development fell flat or they didn't even bother, and using Clark as the viewpoint character worked against the structure of the story they were trying to tell. They even managed to make Zod kinda lame, in my opinion. Zod's death was the only scene that worked  for me and the rest of the movie just wasn't there to support it, before or after.

[ShadowSlider]

You know, I'm always amused by watching people pick apart Man of Steel. I have never liked Superman. In fact, I've almost always hated him. But Man of Steel, for all its faults, was the first time I've ever genuinely liked Superman.

Which makes me all the more upset that Dawn of Justice is looking more and more like a complete clusterfuck. I mean, Spider-Man 3 couldn't handle three villains even when one of them had been built up since the first movie. How the hell is Dawn of Justice supposed to handle three heroes!?

I get that Warner Bros/DC didn't want to straight up follow in Marvel's footsteps, but I really think that pride is going to come back and bite them in the ass when Dawn of Justice finally releases.

[TheGlyphstone]

You know, I'm always amused by watching people pick apart Man of Steel. I have never liked Superman. In fact, I've almost always hated him. But Man of Steel, for all its faults, was the first time I've ever genuinely liked Superman.

Those two things are probably closely related. So many people dislike MoS because it's "not Superman" - the main character is so un-Superman-like that he has basically nothing in common with the comics character except the name. "Snyderman" is my favorite of the fan-names for him.

[Vorian]

Those two things are probably closely related. So many people dislike MoS because it's "not Superman" - the main character is so un-Superman-like that he has basically nothing in common with the comics character except the name. "Snyderman" is my favorite of the fan-names for him.

+1 to that. Superman can be done well without completely missing the point.

But I still think it was a terrible movie regardless, it's lack of resemblance to Superman is the least of my problems with it.

[Chris Brady]

I love watching Man of Steel fights.  It's hilarious.  I mean, everyone's (and I'm talking anyone whose seen the film) complaining on how it's not 'Superman'.  And either completely missing the fact that he wasn't really Superman, it was more a Year 0 as opposed to Year 1, which means he hadn't really settled into who he was.  And secondly, I'm sorry, but Superman cannot save everyone, it's a sad fact of life, but Superman can do a lot of good, he can't do it all.  And I'm wondering why people expect him to be able to.

My issues about Man of Steel is twofold.  One of which I understand why they did it, but it's still kinda breaking my brain a bit.

The first and biggest is Jonathan Kent.  That entire thing with him was STUPID.  That's it, his entire attitude and reasons were plain dumb and nonsensical.

The second point was the Kryptonians being as powerful as Superman after being on Earth for mere HOURS.  BUT the issue with that is having Supes more or less beat Zod in seconds because he's been powered by the human sun for about 30 years doesn't make for good viewing.

Other than that it was a decent film to me.

[Vorian]

Well he didn't come across as Clark Kent or anyone who could ever become Superman either. I don't expect him to be perfect right out of the gate, especially being thrown in the deep end like that, but I expect the foundation of his character to be there. It really wasn't. Smallville handled that angle much better.

The second point was the Kryptonians being as powerful as Superman after being on Earth for mere HOURS.  BUT the issue with that is having Supes more or less beat Zod in seconds because he's been powered by the human sun for about 30 years doesn't make for good viewing.

I actually don't entirely agree on this point. They picked up the secondary powers awfully fast, but in Man of Steel in particular a good portion of their physical strength was due to Krypton's higher gravity. The others grew up and lived in that environment, while Clark grew up in the much weaker earth gravity with active powers. Additionally the other Kryptonians were genetically engineered soldiers, and we don't know for certain how long they'd been in system before revealing themselves or how much exposure to the sun they had. So while they shouldn't really benefit from Earth's environment as much, their baseline physical capabilities would actually be significantly higher. It's also the first time Clark had fought anything even approaching his level.

[TheGlyphstone]

My issues about Man of Steel is twofold.  One of which I understand why they did it, but it's still kinda breaking my brain a bit.

The first and biggest is Jonathan Kent.  That entire thing with him was STUPID.  That's it, his entire attitude and reasons were plain dumb and nonsensical.

Isn't this a big contributor to the 'he's not Superman' argument? Ma and Pa Kent are the two most defining figures in Superman's backstory - the people who raised him and instilled in him the values that he's so symbolic of. The utter character assassination committed upon Pa Kent here takes away Clark's traditional motivations to become the Big Blue Boy Scout, and instead creates grimdark 'Snyderman'.

Very few people expect the Origin Story movie to start out with the fully developed hero. But they do expect it to convincingly tell the beginning of that development; MoS doesn't do that.

[Mathim]

You know, I'm always amused by watching people pick apart Man of Steel. I have never liked Superman. In fact, I've almost always hated him. But Man of Steel, for all its faults, was the first time I've ever genuinely liked Superman.

Which makes me all the more upset that Dawn of Justice is looking more and more like a complete clusterfuck. I mean, Spider-Man 3 couldn't handle three villains even when one of them had been built up since the first movie. How the hell is Dawn of Justice supposed to handle three heroes!?

I get that Warner Bros/DC didn't want to straight up follow in Marvel's footsteps, but I really think that pride is going to come back and bite them in the ass when Dawn of Justice finally releases.

Are you serious? Have you not seen the Avengers? They've proven that up to six heroes can be more or less fairly balanced against one charismatic villain in one film. By the way, there are actually at least four heroes in BvS, since David Momoa was cast as Aquaman. So it's Supes, Bats, Wonderbra and Seaman. Let's see DC screw this one up for other reasons. Like the fact that only Superman got an actual standalone origin story/reboot before this ensemble was thrown together.

[TheGlyphstone]

Are you serious? Have you not seen the Avengers? They've proven that up to six heroes can be more or less fairly balanced against one charismatic villain in one film. By the way, there are actually at least four heroes in BvS, since David Momoa was cast as Aquaman. So it's Supes, Bats, Wonderbra and Seaman. Let's see DC screw this one up for other reasons. Like the fact that only Superman got an actual standalone origin story/reboot before this ensemble was thrown together.

Howabout who the ensemble contains? NuSupes is the only one to get an established standalone movie. Bats is explicitly not NolanBats, so he's coming in cold without any intro - if Affleck can pull off the role, though, Bats has enough film legacy to cope. Wonder Woman has languished with a constant strong of weak scripts and failed TV show pilots for decades, along with suffering from a severe costume identity crisis (seewhatididthere). Aquaman still hasn't recovered, popular image-wise, from his portrayal in Superfriends almost 40 years ago. That makes two well-known (to the moviegoing public) characters paired up with two almost complete unknowns, one of which is a living running joke in comic circles.

As the original film, Batman vs. Superman, it wouldn't have been an awful premise. But this muddled pseudo-Avengers teamup scheme is on the precipice of disaster already.

[Jmorty33]

Are you serious? Have you not seen the Avengers? They've proven that up to six heroes can be more or less fairly balanced against one charismatic villain in one film. By the way, there are actually at least four heroes in BvS, since David Momoa was cast as Aquaman. So it's Supes, Bats, Wonderbra and Seaman. Let's see DC screw this one up for other reasons. Like the fact that only Superman got an actual standalone origin story/reboot before this ensemble was thrown together.

Avengers was not balanced. Tony Stark stole the show as he solved all the films problems, Cap was there because he's the poster boy for The Avengers and for comic relief with the out of touch with time jokes, Thor was there to tie up the Thor 1 plot and to get ladies in seats because of Chris Hemsworth, Hawkeye was a no show for 2/3's of the movie with a few quick lines, Black Widow had some development but not much, Hulk was used mostly as a plot device/ establishing the Ruffalo Banner/ Hulk.

[ShadowSlider]

Are you serious? Have you not seen the Avengers? They've proven that up to six heroes can be more or less fairly balanced against one charismatic villain in one film. By the way, there are actually at least four heroes in BvS, since David Momoa was cast as Aquaman. So it's Supes, Bats, Wonderbra and Seaman. Let's see DC screw this one up for other reasons. Like the fact that only Superman got an actual standalone origin story/reboot before this ensemble was thrown together.

Of course I've seen The Avengers, but one of the only reasons it worked so well is because all the heroes had already been given their own introduction movies, so they didn't need to spend any time on establishing everyone's history. The other reason it worked so well is because it was written in large part by Joss Whedon, who excels at creating and balancing ensemble casts. Hell, Joss Whedon writing and directing it was the only reason I ever got legitimately excited for The Avengers, because I knew he'd be able to handle that number of big characters.

Zack Snyder has yet to really demonstrate that kind of skill. And you can't really use Watchmen as a counter-example because that was written entirely by someone else, and Snyder basically just painted by the numbers. Which is not a dig at him for doing so, because I love that movie and think his approach to making it was absolutely the right way to go.

Avengers was not balanced. Tony Stark stole the show as he solved all the films problems, Cap was there because he's the poster boy for The Avengers and for comic relief with the out of touch with time jokes, Thor was there to tie up the Thor 1 plot and to get ladies in seats because of Chris Hemsworth, Hawkeye was a no show for 2/3's of the movie with a few quick lines, Black Widow had some development but not much, Hulk was used mostly as a plot device/ establishing the Ruffalo Banner/ Hulk.

It was balanced in the sense that everyone got a decent amount of screen time, and even though Tony was the one who wound up ultimately saving the day, everyone else still got their own moment in the spotlight.

[Jmorty33]

It is true that everyone got their moments, but the moments just seemed lackluster to me as all of Tony's outshone the rest of them as he really did save the day, not by himself (you can make an argument that he did do it all by himself). Though really Ruffalo didn't get a solo film before Avengers. We were going in with a new Banner, taking some parts from the Norton film, but there was some stuff that was changed.

[Vorian]

So I finally got around to reading the Extremis arc ... Iron Man 3 screwed that one up pretty bad too.

[ShadowSlider]

So I finally got around to reading the Extremis arc ... Iron Man 3 screwed that one up pretty bad too.

I only partially agree. They could've done it much better than they did, but Marvel's never done a straight adaptation of any one particular storyline (at least as far as I'm aware). Rather, they take the best and major points and craft a new story around them. I read Extremis before I saw Iron Man 3 and I knew right away that they would never do a straight adaptation of it. While an interesting character story that gave a very exciting upgrade to Tony's tech, I also thought it was a bit on the boring side. So I knew they were going to have to do some serious alterations in order to make it work not only as a summer blockbuster movie, but as the first "post-Avengers" movie.

I think the only thing they did wrong with regards to Extremis itself was not mention and/or emphasize how customizable its effects were.

[Vorian]

I wouldn't say boring, personally, but certainly heavier on character development than action. But it's really taking Tony in the direction of transhumanism, where the story they were going for was more 'who is Tony without the armor'. Really makes me wonder why they thought using Extremis over the Mandarin was a good idea. Is it really that important to the overall plot of Phase 2?

Making Extremis explosive was a little odd though, and didn't seem to serve any real purpose. And I have no idea how they came up with Killian of all people as the villian. It's like they just went looking for vaguely relevant names to slap on what they were doing without really caring if it made any sense.

[ShadowSlider]

I wouldn't say boring, personally, but certainly heavier on character development than action. But it's really taking Tony in the direction of transhumanism, where the story they were going for was more 'who is Tony without the armor'. Really makes me wonder why they thought using Extremis over the Mandarin was a good idea. Is it really that important to the overall plot of Phase 2?

Making Extremis explosive was a little odd though, and didn't seem to serve any real purpose. And I have no idea how they came up with Killian of all people as the villian. It's like they just went looking for vaguely relevant names to slap on what they were doing without really caring if it made any sense.

I think making Killian the villain was an attempt to streamline the narrative for movie audiences. Because it does make a certain amount of sense to have the guy who created Extremis to also be the villain attempting to abuse it. As for using Extremis over the Mandarin, I think it could've been a good idea. I think Killian's idea of abusing Extremis to "own the war on terror" is actually a great plot for an Iron Man movie. They just should've left the Mandarin out of it.

As for Tony's transhumanism, I don't know. He goes there in the comics, and I think it's underplayed enough in Iron Man 3 that it doesn't totally ruin the message. The movie still ends with him knowing that he really can hack it without the armor. Personally, with Extremis now in the mix, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Bleeding Edge armor to show up, but I do realize that that's an incredibly long shot.

[Vorian]

I think making Killian the villain was an attempt to streamline the narrative for movie audiences. Because it does make a certain amount of sense to have the guy who created Extremis to also be the villain attempting to abuse it. As for using Extremis over the Mandarin, I think it could've been a good idea. I think Killian's idea of abusing Extremis to "own the war on terror" is actually a great plot for an Iron Man movie. They just should've left the Mandarin out of it.

Killian was never the primary creator though. He was the guy who couldn't live with releasing a single dose to a wannabe terrorist in order to secure funding for the project. It's as drastic a change as turning the Mandarin into a loser in a costume, just in the opposite direction.

Edit: To expand on this a bit, I'm sure it was a matter of streamlining things, but I think they would have been better off with Maya. She was always the ringleader in the comics and already fairly ruthless, if well intentioned. Plus a strong and intelligent woman actually driving the plot might have been worth some of flaws in the film.

As for Tony's transhumanism, I don't know. He goes there in the comics, and I think it's underplayed enough in Iron Man 3 that it doesn't totally ruin the message. The movie still ends with him knowing that he really can hack it without the armor. Personally, with Extremis now in the mix, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Bleeding Edge armor to show up, but I do realize that that's an incredibly long shot.

What I was trying to get at is that to me, the transhumanism is what makes Extremis of any real interest in Iron Man, downplaying it enough to work in the plot the way they wanted completely misses and defeats the point. If they could have managed both angles at once, great, but that's not how things played out. The Mandarin is much better for the direction they wanted Tony to go.

But in all fairness if I wasn't already irritated about the Mandarin I wouldn't be quite so inclined to pick the Extremis angle apart as well.

[ShadowSlider]

Killian was never the primary creator though. He was the guy who couldn't live with releasing a single dose to a wannabe terrorist in order to secure funding for the project. It's as drastic a change as turning the Mandarin into a loser in a costume, just in the opposite direction.

What I was trying to get at is that to me, the transhumanism is what makes Extremis of any real interest in Iron Man, downplaying it enough to work in the plot the way they wanted completely misses and defeats the point. If they could have managed both angles at once, great, but that's not how things played out. The Mandarin is much better for the direction they wanted Tony to go.

But in all fairness if I wasn't already irritated about the Mandarin I wouldn't be quite so inclined to pick the Extremis angle apart as well.

Ah, okay. Misunderstood you on the transhumanism part. Totally agree with you here.

I agree that the Killian change was just as drastic, but I actually think it was for the better. Villains need to have some kind of personal connection to the hero, and there was no one in the original Extremis story that fit that bill in a way suitable for a big blockbuster movie.

[Vorian]

I agree that the Killian change was just as drastic, but I actually think it was for the better. Villains need to have some kind of personal connection to the hero, and there was no one in the original Extremis story that fit that bill in a way suitable for a big blockbuster movie.

They could have changed Maya less drastically for the role and had better results, in my opinion. Killian was still kinda lame and petty.

Edit: Hmm ... or since it was really more of an AIM story than an Extremis story they could have just used an AIM leader as the main villain. But then again I also think the AIM plot belonged more in Agents of SHIELD - it would have given the show more to work with early in the season and allowed Iron Man 3 to focus on the Mandarin and/or a proper Extremis introduction.

[mia h]

Are you serious? Have you not seen the Avengers? They've proven that up to six heroes can be more or less fairly balanced against one charismatic villain in one film. By the way, there are actually at least four heroes in BvS, since David Momoa was cast as Aquaman. So it's Supes, Bats, Wonderbra and Seaman. Let's see DC screw this one up for other reasons. Like the fact that only Superman got an actual standalone origin story/reboot before this ensemble was thrown together.

I thought they'd cast Cyborg already. And with The Rock confirming he's been cast as Black Adam then we should expect to see news about Billy Baston\Captain Marvel\Shazam before too long.

[Mathim]

I just got a horrifying update on Doctor Strange: While the release date is set for it to take place between the third Cap movie and the Guardians sequel, they're apparently really keen on casting Joaquin Phoenix as the Sorcerer Supreme! I'm seriously concerned about this as I've never seen any of his films that gave me any reason to think he was any kind of competent actor and yet I'm hearing all this stuff about him being Oscar-worthy which I can't wrap my mind around. Then there's the problem of him not really (I could be persuaded if they'd show me a prototype of him being makeupped and stuff) looking all that much like Strange in my opinion. On the plus side, people say he's not been known to go for big-budget pics like this and isn't likely to want to commit to a contract like the other Avengers cast.

Anyone want to render their verdict? Am I being unfair to Merrill Hess and the creepy emperor from Gladiator? I had planned on seeing 'Her' which apparently is interesting but is there anything else with him that won't make me think he sucks as bad as he did in The Village?

[ShadowSlider]

I just got a horrifying update on Doctor Strange: While the release date is set for it to take place between the third Cap movie and the Guardians sequel, they're apparently really keen on casting Joaquin Phoenix as the Sorcerer Supreme! I'm seriously concerned about this as I've never seen any of his films that gave me any reason to think he was any kind of competent actor and yet I'm hearing all this stuff about him being Oscar-worthy which I can't wrap my mind around. Then there's the problem of him not really (I could be persuaded if they'd show me a prototype of him being makeupped and stuff) looking all that much like Strange in my opinion. On the plus side, people say he's not been known to go for big-budget pics like this and isn't likely to want to commit to a contract like the other Avengers cast.

Anyone want to render their verdict? Am I being unfair to Merrill Hess and the creepy emperor from Gladiator? I had planned on seeing 'Her' which apparently is interesting but is there anything else with him that won't make me think he sucks as bad as he did in The Village?

Eh, he wouldn't be my first choice, but Marvel's casting choices thus far haven't truly disappointed me, so if they see something they like in Phoenix, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

And I wouldn't judge any actor by their performance in a Shamylan movie. Will Smith is one of my favorite actors of all time, and Shamylan made him look absolutely terrible in After Earth.

[Mathim]

But I didn't care for him in Gladiator either, and that movie won a ton of awards for reasons that baffle my friend and I. I mean, is he just one of those actors who is popular but for no real good reason, like Nicholas Cage and Bruce Willis?

[TheGlyphstone]

Nick Cage isn't really a bad actor - he used to star in good movies, and won a bunch of awards early in his career. It's just that now he's gotten lazy and become the Hollywood version of a two dollar hooker, accepting literally any role thrown his way for a fat paycheck while putting in basically no effort. I can't speak for or against Willis, I only know him from Die Hard and Fifth Element. But that is off-topic, though...

As for Phoenix...I've never seen him on screen, but don't condemn him based on award-winning roles you just happened to personally dislike.

[Oniya]

I seem to recall that he did a Johnny Cash biopic that he put a lot of effort into - to the extent of learning how to play the instruments and sing (with actual vocal instruction) instead of using camera tricks to make the audience think they were seeing more than an overdub.

[Mathim]

Hmm...somehow I don't see him shadowing David Copperfield to learn how to do magic before signing on for this part...

[Jmorty33]

Ehhh I think he's a competent actor. He really pulled off the maniacal and cunning emperor type in Gladiator. But just the way that he sounds, that high pitched, nasally, rasp in his voice can get a bit grating. I think for Steven Strange you need a deeper, much more smoother voice, like Jim Caviezel. I think he'd make a great Doctor Strange.

[Oniya]

I'd have to hear how he did in the biopic - Cash's voice in life was deep and smooth.

[Slywyn]

Nick Cage does crap movies because that's what people expect from him these days. I think he mentioned it in an interview. People expect him to be bad, so he does bad. It's not a bad actor, he's just playing into what people want.

Phoenix did really good in Her, I'd suggest watching it.

[consortium11]

I'm not sure if I particularly like him as Dr Strange but Joaquin Phoenix is an incredible actor. Her, The Master, The Yards, Quills and Walk the Line are all stunning performances from him.

[Mathim]

Hmm...maybe it won't be the end of the world, then. I still don't think there exists an actor more suited to the role than Luke Evans, though, in terms of matching the look and having experience with this kind of fantasy/supernatural role, plus he's talented.

It looks like Phase 3 of Marvel is really coming together; I think Phase 2 had its pecking order arranged pretty early on and they're trying to, apparently, keep the Avengers releases 3 years apart so that being said...

Ant-Man (July 2015)
Cap 3 (May 2016)
Doc Strange (July 2016)
GOTG 2 (July 2017)

Now, if we assume 2 films per year at this point as a constant, that means about 5 films before Avengers 3. Given this patterns, something is likely to go between Dr. Strange and GOTG 2, though I can't help but wonder why they're centering around the months of May and July. Shouldn't the summer blockbusters be between June and August? Or are they just leaving some months/weeks open to compete with the Sony and Fox-owned Marvel films?

Anyway, Avengers: Age of Ultron is about to shove the MCU into the top spot for highest-grossing film franchise. They needed 3 more films than Harry Potter to do it but if it makes over a billion (not likely to be a problem) that'll raise the average of each MCU film even more, since the MCU hasn't actually made that much per film if you go by the numbers from Phase 1. It seems like every Phase 2 film has vastly outperformed all but the first Avengers title, likely due to the Avengers' success. Plus once they get to the top...I don't think they're ever coming back down no matter what DC does. Thoughts?

[Jmorty33]

I think it's definitely plausible that the MCU could definitely claim the top spot... for some time. Like every record, something/ someone comes along to break it. Eventually Marvel will drop a bomb, or just one that doesn't live up to the hype. Slowly something will come along. Whether it be DC, or some other franchise, eventually they will fall.

[Shjade]

I realize I'm responding to something from the first page, but what can I say, this thread got away from me for a while and I didn't see the comic I had in mind mentioned on the "possible Superman movie stories" list, so yeah.

And where, pray tell, is this story? It seems to have eluded six different films. I mean, strike three and you're out, but doing it twice over? Sorry, I'm done giving them chances to wow me and it doesn't look like BvS is going to change that. Then again, forcing him to be downplayed in favor of other heroes does have the potential to keep him from stealing the spotlight.

If I were to suggest a Superman story for a movie, it'd be Kingdom Come.

Long story short: decades after Superman's heyday (Bruce Wayne's a white-haired old fogey using prosthetics by this point), the boy scout's called back into action to deal with modern society's spiral into destruction at the hands of the new generation of "heroes" who constantly fight each other for want of anything better to do with their time. This results in a large three-way factioned conflict between the old guard comprised of most of the old Justice League and their followers under Superman's lead; the new order of some old heroes, some old villains and the forces they pile together (led by Lex Luthor); and a third group that's harder to label but more or less could be summed up as "humanists," led by Batman. It's a story about a lot of things and it would have to be adapted heavily to suit a movie (because just say no to setting up a story as a series of movies when your studio already has a shaky track record), but at its core it would be a movie answering these questions:

What are superheroes, and what is their role? (Alternative phrasing: Do we need them?)

As Glyphstone pointed out, most Superman movies are just attempts to remake his origin story and reintroduce him to the audience. This is foolishness: everyone knows Superman already. If by some miracle someone in the audience doesn't know Superman, he's not hard to explain: alien, raised on earth, goody-two-shoes to the max, holyfuck strong. There you go, Superman introduced. We don't need his origin story; we need to know, as Mathim's disbelief in the idea of an interesting Superman story quite aptly demonstrates, why he's relevant. That's the story a movie needs to sell. Kingdom Come provides ample material to explore that concept, as well as introduce as much (or little - could always scale the story down while retaining its core principles) of the DCU as they want to possibly open up paths to future character movies without then needing big introductions for every character - you get that "Hey, isn't that the guy from that Superman movie?" effect. Maybe they don't know exactly who "that guy" is, but they have some point of reference for what he looks like, what he can do, maybe even what he stands for depending on how much of a role he had in the KC movie, and you can build from there instead of needing to dedicate an entire movie solely to "this is who That Guy is." Hit the ground running.

Not that it'll ever happen. Way too large-scale a project for them to attempt in the current circumstances. Marvel owns the theater.

[consortium11]

If had to adapt a story I'd actually play on the fact that everyone in the audience knows Superman but studios love origin movies.

I give you Superman: Secret Identity

In brief, in a world where Superman is a famous comic book character like in our world, the Kent's have a son and name him Clark (after the character). He gets a lot of Superman related jokes at school etc etc... only to later discover that he actually does have Superman's powers and things go from there.

It's one of the best Elseworld's style DC tales (despite not officially being an Elseworlds book) and well worth a read; it's well written, clever, sweet, enjoyable and generally a damn fine piece of writing.

[Chris Brady]

But I didn't care for him in Gladiator either, and that movie won a ton of awards for reasons that baffle my friend and I. I mean, is he just one of those actors who is popular but for no real good reason, like Nicholas Cage and Bruce Willis?

It's not that they're bad actors.  In fact, it's entirely unfair to blame the entire movie on the actor.  It should be shared with the Director and Writer.  Not every actor can save a script, or work past a terrible director.  They're just doing the job the best that they can.  Sometimes, it's enough to save a movie, other times, they just can't.

It's this sort of mentality that drives me nuts.  We (as a species) just look at the surface, and immediately blame the most obvious target when we should look deeper.  Sometimes, yes, it is one actor that kills a film, but that's incredibly rare, it's often, as I pointed out, a combination of things.  And sometimes, it's not even the actor's fault.

Daredevil was (to me) an OK film.  But Affleck's film Paycheck was pretty good, actually.  Which to me says that the DD script was horrid, and no one could have saved it.  It also tells me that Affleck isn't that good an actor, in that he can save a bad script.

[Mathim]

It's not that they're bad actors.  In fact, it's entirely unfair to blame the entire movie on the actor.  It should be shared with the Director and Writer.  Not every actor can save a script, or work past a terrible director.  They're just doing the job the best that they can.  Sometimes, it's enough to save a movie, other times, they just can't.

It's this sort of mentality that drives me nuts.  We (as a species) just look at the surface, and immediately blame the most obvious target when we should look deeper.  Sometimes, yes, it is one actor that kills a film, but that's incredibly rare, it's often, as I pointed out, a combination of things.  And sometimes, it's not even the actor's fault.

Daredevil was (to me) an OK film.  But Affleck's film Paycheck was pretty good, actually.  Which to me says that the DD script was horrid, and no one could have saved it.  It also tells me that Affleck isn't that good an actor, in that he can save a bad script.

That's not what I meant at all. I was implying that the range of Bruce Willis and Nick Cage's acting ability is to spout lines while scowling.

[TheGlyphstone]

Let's be fair. Cage can also spout lines while grinning maniacally.

[Mathim]

I just watched about 3 dozen videos on youtube about spoilers and comic-con and such in regards to both Marvel and DC's upcoming and rumored projects and all of it is leading me to think that DC should just call it quits if they think they can compete with Marvel at this point. Marvel's got so much going on in the works, it's ridiculous, and the only thing DC has any info on right now as far as future projects is B Vs. S. The whole reason Marvel's killing it right now is because they plan things in advance and take (barely) risks that end up paying off handsomely (Guardians of the Galaxy just broke the 600 million barrier for its worldwide gross). If I were to ask you guys, before even a trailer of BVS comes out (officially), do you think it can break a billion at the box office during its entire run, how would the votes stack up? I could ask the same question about Age of Ultron and I have no doubt everyone here would say 'well, duh' but I can't say with confidence where the responses would tend to fall for DC's first crossover. I sure hope DC isn't raising its hopes up too high if they're counting on this one to eventually let their franchise blow up to MCU proportions. It could surprise me and be the best superhero movie ever, of course; if they're determined to pull out all the stops and take it seriously then it is possible. I just doubt they're capable or willing.

Some seriously spoilerific stuff follows regarding the MCU and goes along with what I've discovered on those videos so read with caution (specifically regarding Age of Ultron and what effect this will have on pretty much every other film leading up to Avengers 3).

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

There seems to be a lot of arrows pointing to the conclusion of Age of Ultron having a rift form between the team, specifically polarizing the Captain America and Iron Man characters. Since there is a strong possibility that after Ant-Man, origin stories are no longer going to be the formula for introducing new characters in the MCU, this means the new meat will just have to be thrown in wherever they can, and this leads to the main point of speculation: If Tony Stark and Steve Rogers can no longer agree on anything of significance, this could be the start of the MCU version of the Marvel Civil War, where each side has to bring their own factions and duke it out. There could also be elements of the superhero registration act creating the rift and with SHIELD neutered, there would probably be some significant political and public demand for more control of these superhumans. There is a rumor that Cap will end up cutting ties with Tony and say he's got his own team now, consisting of the introductions of some new heroes, the most popular and seemingly likely candidates being Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel and Black Panther, if not others. Given Thor's attitude about how humans 'mistrust their champions' and such, I'd guess he'd side with Tony, and I'm fairly sure Bruce Banner's attitude about autonomy and not being kept under scrutiny would also end with him being on that side. If all this is true then Cap's going to really need to step his recruiting game up to match the strength of Iron Man, Hulk and Thor (especially since we won't have any idea how they'd choose to adapt Ms. Marvel's powers from the comics to the screen since she's basically a female Superman).

[ShadowSlider]

I just watched about 3 dozen videos on youtube about spoilers and comic-con and such in regards to both Marvel and DC's upcoming and rumored projects and all of it is leading me to think that DC should just call it quits if they think they can compete with Marvel at this point. Marvel's got so much going on in the works, it's ridiculous, and the only thing DC has any info on right now as far as future projects is B Vs. S. The whole reason Marvel's killing it right now is because they plan things in advance and take (barely) risks that end up paying off handsomely (Guardians of the Galaxy just broke the 600 million barrier for its worldwide gross). If I were to ask you guys, before even a trailer of BVS comes out (officially), do you think it can break a billion at the box office during its entire run, how would the votes stack up? I could ask the same question about Age of Ultron and I have no doubt everyone here would say 'well, duh' but I can't say with confidence where the responses would tend to fall for DC's first crossover. I sure hope DC isn't raising its hopes up too high if they're counting on this one to eventually let their franchise blow up to MCU proportions. It could surprise me and be the best superhero movie ever, of course; if they're determined to pull out all the stops and take it seriously then it is possible. I just doubt they're capable or willing.

Some seriously spoilerific stuff follows regarding the MCU and goes along with what I've discovered on those videos so read with caution (specifically regarding Age of Ultron and what effect this will have on pretty much every other film leading up to Avengers 3).

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

There seems to be a lot of arrows pointing to the conclusion of Age of Ultron having a rift form between the team, specifically polarizing the Captain America and Iron Man characters. Since there is a strong possibility that after Ant-Man, origin stories are no longer going to be the formula for introducing new characters in the MCU, this means the new meat will just have to be thrown in wherever they can, and this leads to the main point of speculation: If Tony Stark and Steve Rogers can no longer agree on anything of significance, this could be the start of the MCU version of the Marvel Civil War, where each side has to bring their own factions and duke it out. There could also be elements of the superhero registration act creating the rift and with SHIELD neutered, there would probably be some significant political and public demand for more control of these superhumans. There is a rumor that Cap will end up cutting ties with Tony and say he's got his own team now, consisting of the introductions of some new heroes, the most popular and seemingly likely candidates being Ms. Marvel/Captain Marvel and Black Panther, if not others. Given Thor's attitude about how humans 'mistrust their champions' and such, I'd guess he'd side with Tony, and I'm fairly sure Bruce Banner's attitude about autonomy and not being kept under scrutiny would also end with him being on that side. If all this is true then Cap's going to really need to step his recruiting game up to match the strength of Iron Man, Hulk and Thor (especially since we won't have any idea how they'd choose to adapt Ms. Marvel's powers from the comics to the screen since she's basically a female Superman).

I would LOVE to see a big-screen adaptation of Civil War, but I don't think it's going to happen all that soon. If anything, it'll be the storyline they tackle AFTER Avengers 3, since they have as yet to properly deal with Thanos and the Infinity Stones. We'll see how Age of Ultron plays out, but I just don't see them seriously building up to Civil War already.

As for BvS breaking a billion at the box office, I think it COULD happen, but it would have to be a phenominal film. Based on what happened with Man of Steel, and the fact that general audiences will likely be confused why they're already getting a new Batman (which also hurt The Amazing Spider-Man), I don't see BvS making much more than $800 million in the best-case scenario. Worst-case, the film lives down to all our worst fears and actually performs worse than Man of Steel due to incredibly toxic word of mouth.

Also, here's an interesting thought. Man of Steel made $668 million worldwide. That's WITH Superman's unrivaled name recognition. Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy has NO name recognition, comes across as a seriously weird and confusing move on Marvel's part, and grosses $612 million (and counting) based almost solely on incredible word of mouth.

As for Age of Ultron, I think it could actually pass $2 billion. Think about it. Every Phase 2 Marvel film has performed significantly better than it's predecessor, and with the Avengers making $1.5 billion at the box office, I don't think it's all that unreasonable to think Age of Ultron could easily out-perform it's Phase 1 counterpart. My bet is that it makes at least $1.8 billion, if it doesn't actually hit $2 billion.

[Mathim]

Yeah, that pretty much sums up how I feel about DC's gambit. It feels like not, at the very least, doing a Batman reboot is a really huge obstacle to this. Three heroes (minimum) plus villain(s) with no prior backstory established for their particular incarnations...not a good recipe.

I think that's a (likely) overestimation of the performance power of A2: AoU, and I was frankly amazed the Avengers broke 1.5 billion. It's unlikely there's any fringe groups remaining that haven't been part of that contribution (or IM3's for that matter) so I think we're going to see at least 1.25 billion but I would hesitate to guess it would do any better than 1.75 billion. Then again, I would relish the idea of it replacing Titanic and/or Avatar as highest-grossing film of all time!

[TheGlyphstone]

Avatar's gross was 2.78 billion, it'll take a lot for AoU to approach that benchmark.

[Mathim]

Hey, as long as SOME Marvel movie eventually kicks that much ass, I'll be happy. Take that, James Cameraman!

[TheGlyphstone]

What if it turns out to be Avengers 3, directed by James Cameron?

[Mathim]

If Joss Whedon (or, as is speculated, James Gunn, who is allegedly being 'groomed' to take up Whedon's mantle in the MCU) changes his name legally to James Cameron, I'm not worried about that. Even Avengers 3 might not have the big clash between the Avengers/Guardians (and possibly Defenders, from the TV shows they're putting together) and Thanos' forces over the Infiniti Gauntlet; they might be holding out on that til later still. I wouldn't mind seeing an MCU-only version of the Secret Wars being put on in the meantime, though. Doing that with the limited rogues' gallery they have, and without the X-Men, Spidey or F4, it would be interesting to see how they would put that together (even at 3 hours, they'd probably have to make it a two-parter).

[Chris Brady]

This is FAN MADE but looks kinda cool, now if Warner Brothers could do something like this, without trying their usual BS...

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

[Mathim]

Frankly I'd rather see that than DC's upcoming 'Gotham' show that actually is in development. I mean, without Batman, what's the point? And is it just me or does the Nightwing logo and the Agents of SHIELD symbol look a little too similar?

Also I've been wondering about this; of all the possible Defenders members (the ones getting their own shows that are part of the MCU continuity) which do you guys think should get an actual movie? In my opinion, Iron Fist would be the coolest one to make a movie of since his origin is pretty badass and supernatural compared to some of the others.

[Top Cat]

Frankly I'd rather see that than DC's upcoming 'Gotham' show that actually is in development. I mean, without Batman, what's the point?

The point of Gotham is backstory - giving some more insight into Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and most specifically James Gordon - as well as also dipping into how Alfred Pennyworth raised Bruce following his parents' murder. It will also start diving into other characters that are probably going to be explored in-depth - they've teased about Joker.

Personally, I think that's a fantastic idea, and I'm quite interested in how it's been presented so far. Stella and I will definitely be watching it, as well as The Flash and Arrow, this fall. I just hope that they don't borrow too much from Batman: Year One. I have no respect for Frank Miller.

Edit: I do like how that Nightwing fan production was done. Very well done, and well in line with the characters.

[Mathim]

The point of Gotham is backstory - giving some more insight into Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and most specifically James Gordon - as well as also dipping into how Alfred Pennyworth raised Bruce following his parents' murder. It will also start diving into other characters that are probably going to be explored in-depth - they've teased about Joker.

Personally, I think that's a fantastic idea, and I'm quite interested in how it's been presented so far. Stella and I will definitely be watching it, as well as The Flash and Arrow, this fall. I just hope that they don't borrow too much from Batman: Year One. I have no respect for Frank Miller.

Edit: I do like how that Nightwing fan production was done. Very well done, and well in line with the characters.

You mean all the boring crap? That's what the first 1/3 of superhero origin films are for, not entire seasons of TV series. At least Smallville introduced tons of stuff from adult Superman's life so it wasn't all 'before he became a hero'. I'd rather see a young Bruce traveling the world, learning stuff from his many varying trainers and escape artists and such. And I'm not big on Frank Miller either, with anything that has his name on it, Batman or otherwise.

[TheGlyphstone]

You mean all the boring crap? That's what the first 1/3 of superhero origin films are for, not entire seasons of TV series. At least Smallville introduced tons of stuff from adult Superman's life so it wasn't all 'before he became a hero'. I'd rather see a young Bruce traveling the world, learning stuff from his many varying trainers and escape artists and such. And I'm not big on Frank Miller either, with anything that has his name on it, Batman or otherwise.

Wouldn't this be something you support, then? If they take the 'boring crap' and out it all into TV series, that frees up said 1/3 of the superhero film for non-boring crap.

[Mathim]

Wouldn't this be something you support, then? If they take the 'boring crap' and out it all into TV series, that frees up said 1/3 of the superhero film for non-boring crap.

As long as they don't overwhelm you with it, it's not that bad. But from what I have heard about Gotham, it would be like dragging out the whole "Steve Rodgers before he became Captain America" thing for a 13-episode season rather than the 20 minutes or so it took up in The First Avenger. You could make the pilot episode of Gotham a pure origin story but from that point, dwelling on it would be ratings poison, or so logic would suggest. Iron Man was really the only MCU film that actually really needed that amount of time to establish his origin as opposed to him getting into the swing of things which wasn't so difficult or lengthy for the other Phase 1 dudes.

[Chris Brady]

Personally, the issue I have with Gotham is that...  Until Batman shows up, the were no 'victories' by the police.  Nothing changed, in fact, crap just got worse, and worse, and worse.  And that sucks for a superhero story.  It barely worked for X-Files.

[Top Cat]

You mean all the boring crap? That's what the first 1/3 of superhero origin films are for, not entire seasons of TV series. At least Smallville introduced tons of stuff from adult Superman's life so it wasn't all 'before he became a hero'. I'd rather see a young Bruce traveling the world, learning stuff from his many varying trainers and escape artists and such. And I'm not big on Frank Miller either, with anything that has his name on it, Batman or otherwise.

*shrug* I think that following the introduction of James Gordon into crime-riddled Gotham has a great deal of potential. But, YMMV - not everyone views the same things the same way, of course.

In other news, the Deadpool movie has officially been announced as of an hour or so ago - slated for February 2016.  ^-^

[TheGlyphstone]

From Entertainment Weekly's article:

It’s impossible to know if Deadpool can live up to years of fan hype, or if such an immediately weird property can connect with the mainstream public. But worth pointing out that Deadpool hasn’t started filming yet and is already the best superhero movie Ryan Reynolds has ever made.

[Mathim]

You gotta be shitting me. I'm not that familiar with his character or how he's going to fit into the established X-Men continuity (or if they're even going to bother trying; I suppose they have a clean slate with him since DOFP changed Wolverine's whole past and his relation with Stryker's unit.) I just know I'm not as excited as most about it. I'm still butt-hurt about The Wolverine being what it was instead of them taking the opportunity to make a movie centered around him more interesting by introducing characters like his bastard son Daken and female clone X-23. Dropping the three of them into Japan and throwing in the REAL Silver Samurai would have been a slice of fried gold. And I heard they were going to do yet another standalone Wolvy pic, though unless they plan to have it go heavy on the mutant side of things, I'm not losing sleep waiting for that one, either. X-Men Apocalypse is all I'm really excited about from Fox right now.

Some interesting stuff on youtube I wanted to share with you guys (just watch the video if you don't care about spoilers). The gist is, a lot of hints have been dropped about the possible involvement of Namor in the MCU despite his film rights still being in Universal's hands. Just something to think about (I know I'd like to see it; the more new heroes, the better).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biXk8X7UNaQ