2014 will feature several superhero/comic book films. The big titles are from Marvel Studios which will be releasing Captain America: The Winter Soldier in April, in May we get The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past and finally there will be Guardians of the Galaxy in August. Despite the huge success of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Man of Steel, Marvel Studios is kicking DC Entertainment's ass (a quick scan through wikipedia shows that their next feature appears to be the Batman vs. Superman in 2016). Understandably Marvel is will ride Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man and the X-Men into the ground. Why not? Those properties have made boatloads of money worldwide. One of the things that make me scratch my head is the Guardians of the Galaxy film. I collected comics from around 1983-1992 and I consider myself knowledgable of what went on in that era but I am vaguely familiar with this group. The group first appeared in 1969 and was scene sporadically in different titles throughout the 70's. Then they got their own title in 1992 and ran until 1995. This is a fringe group at best (I do not remember seeing them in any of the X-Men titles I subscribed to nor the Fantastic Four) and they're getting their own film. Make no mistake, I will most likely see this but it's not a given as X-Men: Days of Future Past.
While I wonder about the following for the Guardians film (it may be huge for all I know but admittedly I'm outdated) one that really leaves me dumbfounded is Ant-Man. This has been on my mind for some time and after reading this article, I decided to spend a few minutes to relay my thoughts. Ant-Man first appeared in issue #27 of Tales to Astonish in 1962 and is a founding member of the Avengers. Ant-Man was the crime fighting alter-ego of biochemist Henry Pym and as you may have already guessed his "power" was mind control of ants and the ability to shrink down the the size of an ant. As Ant-Man, Pym faced many deadly foes but also had to watch out for people stepping on him and of course the things all dog fear the most...vacuum cleaners!
The look of horror on his face says it all.
That's right, this hero who got sucked into a vacuum cleaner in a story is getting his own film. Also, Ant-Man started out in 1962 and by 1964 Pym got rid of the Ant-Man duds to become Giant-Man (it was to impress a girl. Given). The next Avengers installment, the villain will be Ultron.
In the Marvel Universe Ultron's creator is Hank Pym so I can see why they need to Pym into the story line but do we really need to have an Ant-Man film? That answer is no. Ant-Man wasn't popular enough to hold onto his own title and different people donned the helmet and none of them were able to gain a substantial foothold in the Marvel Universe. Ant-Man became a punchline in a SNL skit from over 30 years ago. Margot Kidder was the guest and the skit was a dinner party at Lois Lane's apartment. The guests include Superman/Clark Kent (played by Bill Murray), The Flash (Aykroyd), The Hulk (Belushi) and Ant-Man (Garret Morris). The Flash & Hulk get Ant-Man try to strike up a conversation with Ant-Man then make fun of him when he describes his "powers." The Hulu clip is unavailable but here's a screen cap...
L to R: Aykroyd, Morris and Belushi
With the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier film, its rumored that the easter egg in the credits will feature the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
Quicksilver is the dude and the little girl is the Scarlet Witch. They both started out in Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants back in 1963 but eventually saw the error of their ways and turned to fighting crime. Both became Avengers in issue #16 in 1965. Quicksilver is the speedster in the Marvel Universe (everyone's got to have a guy that can run really, really fast right?) and the Scarlet With is a witch...
The weird stuff emerging from her hand is a hint in case her name didn't give it away.
The point is that these are more minor characters in the Marvel Universe. Quicksilver (who was always portrayed as a bag of douche in my day) married into the Inhumans and Scarlett Witch married an android. Neither one ever had the popularity or depth to carry their own title. Hell, even the villain from Thor: Dark World wasn't a major player is the Asgardian world. When I saw the film I thought, "who the hell is Malekith?" It turns out he was a villain in a brief story arc during Walt Simonson's run on The Mighty Thor from 1983-1987.
He was in 10 issues between '84-'86 then didn't appear again until 1995. A major player obviously.
I also didn't know who in the hell the Collector (a Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in) was either when they had the post credit excerpt. I read a lot of comics in the 80's and went to a lot of comic conventions but I do not remember the Collector at all. Maybe all this will tie together nicely when the Avengers sequel comes out in 2015 but who knows. In the future the Fantastic Four are getting a reboot and there have been rumors about Doctor Strange (don't confuse him with Doctor Fate) getting a film but I have no idea how true that is. There was attempt to bring Dr. Strange to the small screen (back when Stan Lee was selling off the rights anyone with a wad of cash) in 1978 and it gave us this...
The effects were terrible but the budget was very low and the show tanked (as did the live action The Amazing Spider-Man series from the same era).
Is it really necessary to saturate the market? Dumb question, of course it is. Until there's a real bomb or a string of box offices failures they'll keep churning them out. The bottom will drop out of the genre (these things are cyclical) eventually but when has Hollywood ever put their foot on the brake when there is money to be made.
In part 2 I will go into what is going on in the DC Universe. They can't get anything outside of Batman to work right though Man of Steel was a good film. Thanks for your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment