Any hint of a comic book movie coming out provokes a flurry of posts on all the message boards suggesting actors to fill the role of superheroes.  It’s a fun and frustrating experience, squeezing real-life people into comic book personas.  There are always a few surprises.  (I, after considering the matter, think that someone should cast George Clooney as Batman one more time, but not yet.  Wait ten-ish years and then make him play Batman in Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.  Not only do I think it would work but it would make for a fantastic piece of meta; his work in Batman And Robin approximating the Batman comics of the sixties while he plays a more modern, dark Batman in DKR.)

Keeping in mind that the movies are probably never going to be made, I’m going to give my picks for Wonder Woman and Green Arrow.  Or,  ahem.  Excuse me.  Supermax. 

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That’s what it is according to the images of the toys for Wolverine: Origins. So far there’s a Superhero Squad figure and this guy:

“So who is this Deadpool guy?”
“He looks like Freddy Krueger and has Wolverine’s healing, but no claws.”
“We’re going to give him claws because it’s a Wolverine movie.”
“But, sir! If he has claws, that makes him too similar to Freddy Krueger!”
“Then we won’t make him look like Freddy Krueger anymore! Make him look like Zartan or something. What, do I have to think of everything?”

I seem to hate this design considerably less when I remember that Alex Hayden existed.

I was planning to see Watchmen when it came out in theaters, but I wasn’t particularly excited about it.  As I’ve said before, it follows the extra dark trend of superhero movies.  For me, an extra dark superhero movie is like extra dark chocolate.  Yes, it’s trendy these days, and everyone agrees that it’s classier, but most of the fun has gone out of it. 

However, then I learned that Fox started legal proceedings against Warner Brothers and the movie would be delayed, or perhaps even, (gasp), never released.

So of course then, I wanted to see it, needed to see it, started concocting I Love Lucy type schemes in order to get to see it, like unearthing one of those suits that I bought when I thought going to work meant wearing suits when in actuality going to work means advancing far enough that you don’t need to wear suits anymore, and pretending to be a lawyer (I would also probably need a briefcase) and saying that I represented one side or the other in order to get to see it.  Or perhaps I would find someone on the internet to whom it had been leaked, and beg it off of them, and transfer it to others using the netname Rorschach/Owlman4evah.

And now, the legal issues have been settled, and the movie is out in March, and I’m thinking, ‘Okay.  I’ll see it.  If it’s playing at that theater where they let you pump your own butter on to the popcorn.’

It’s sad when you’re a grown woman and you realize that you would be easily tricked into helping Tom Sawyer whitewash a fence.

Gangstarr Girl: Blaxploitation Friday #21 (The Horror Edition)
Blaxploitation Friday #21 (The Horror Edition)

If you’ve been following this series then you realize that despite the overall cheesiness of blaxploitation movies, the basic theme is movies geared toward the African-American community–something that we can call our own. Yes, the characters are very stereotypical and the movies tend to follow the same plots like sticking it to the man, a big score (involving money), pimps, the bad chick on a rampage of vengeance, etc. but you didn’t think there could be blaxploitation movies without factoring in the horror genre did you? If so, you are sadly mistaken.
Kicking off the blaxploitation Friday horror edition is JD’s Revenge.

I’ve been following GG for a minute now, in part because of these posts about blaxploitation. Go check it out, it’s always interesting.

Most people have heard of the Green Arrow movie by now. It’s not called Green Arrow, and the hero doesn’t have the Green Arrow costume, and he doesn’t fight any costumed criminals, and the people he does fight aren’t on the street, they’re in a prison, and he is, too, and just before they put him away for life, they shave his goatee.

This pretty much sounds like they’re hanging on to the concept of the Green Arrow comic with one pinky and a whole lot of optimism. I mean, taking away his beard. Really? For one thing; that’s low. For another; they want us to believe he’s incarcerated in the ultimate prison designed for the worst offenders in the world, but they still give the prisoners access to razor blades?

In the end, though, I don’t much care if Ollie never wears the suit, or runs through the streets shooting arrows. I do, however, want to see him stand up during one of those tense communal meals, the ones where you wonder if someone is going to get a shiv to the neck, and give a big speech on the politics of the prison system in this country. And I want to see his fellow inmates roll their eyes and keep eating. Because that’s who Ollie is; the liberal idiot.

When I say idiot, I don’t mean it as a comment on the extremism of his politics, because that would be meaningless. Everyone who is or has ever been liberal has experienced a moment when you look to the person to the right of you and think, ‘You’re not really a liberal,’ and then look to the person to the left of you and think, ‘Yeah. Come back to earth, Moon Unit.’ Ollie is neither of those people. He’s the guy who is standing opposite the three of you and making a long speech that makes all three of you yell ‘Shut up,’ even though all three of you agree with him. He’s the guy in the coffee house, stroking the thigh of a girl fifteen years younger than he is and saying, ‘The concept of marriage is completely a tool of the patriarchy. I love that you see through that.’

Oliver Queen is a liberal idiot. He’s always injecting politics into every situation. He makes a point of positioning himself as not only right, but righteous. He identifies with the little guy, the poor, the weak, the underdogs, while he’s a billionaire vigilante, highly trained in martial arts. He’s much more principled politically than he is personally.

He’s also a dedicated political activist who puts his money, time, and effort where his mouth is.

Green Arrow emerges from all of these contradictions as a gloriously fun amalgam of the liberal movement; its inappropriateness, its shaggy, swaggering machismo, its self-righteousness, and its moments of great achievement. If the filmmakers are going to toss out the green hoodie, I hope that they at least keep that.

Any video game fans here reading 4l?

Anyone opposed to more video game/movies/music content?

edit: also, you can find me on Xbox Live as hermanos or on PSN as fourel. If you add me, throw me a message letting me know who you are.

A couple years back, Marvel released an animated straight-to-DVD movie Ultimate Avengers, based somewhat on the popular Ultimates comic. Softening the hard series put a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths, but it did have some stuff going for it. It had that great Avengers vs. Hulk fight at the end and a sweet scene where Captain America realizes just which century he’s woken up in. All in all, it wasn’t so good.

A sequel came out soon after, featuring Black Panther. I remember very little of it due to how boring it was. The highlight of it being a fun segment where Tony Stark takes a walk through his cave of infinite Iron Man armors to settle on the War Machine design.

As much as I didn’t like Ultimate Avengers 2, that doesn’t compare to the outright disgust I had at Invincible Iron Man. Holy shit. That movie is so boring that, no joke, hermanos fell asleep watching it TWICE. It’s made up of endless talking, bad CGI, lots and lots of Iron Man getting his ass handed to him and a laughable climactic battle involving the Mandarin’s ghost floating over a mind-controlled naked woman who’s defeated by Iron Man yelling “REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!” It’s really bad. I feel sorry for anyone who purchased it based on the success of the Robert Downey Jr. movie.

Following that came Doctor Strange. This one had promise. As an origin for Strange, it went really well. The character development was tops. Too bad they decided to bog it down with so many unneeded things. They decided that magic wasn’t interesting enough, so they transferred nearly everything magic-related into kung-fu sword fighting. Then they gave Strange a squad of kung-fu action sorcerers for the sake of a body count. It would have been pretty good, ultimately, until they ruined it with the most laughable deus ex machina in movie history. The way Dr. Strange beats Dormammu is so badly written and lazy, I’m still in awe.

My personal order is Doctor Strange over Ultimate Avengers over Ultimate Avengers 2 over Invincible Iron Man. The new animated movie Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow steps over that list as the best. But does that mean it’s actually good? That’s a good question.

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Watchmen will be coming out in March and, no doubt, the first few screenings will be almost entirely packed with comic book fans. The book, to comics fans, has a status somewhere between The Catcher in the Rye and the moon landing. It not only changed their lives, it marked a turning point for comics in general, taking a more critical and nuanced look not only at superhero characters, but at the concept of superheroes in general. Alan Moore presented a deeply cynical vision at the way the world would look if it had to interact with a group of dangerously powerful people with big egos and flexible morals. The book made every fan who ever fantasized about the fourth wall dissolving consider that it might turn the world darker and more dangerous rather than more exciting and fun. Watchmen wasn’t a book, it was an event, and so I’m guessing that the first few screenings will alternate between awed silence and wild cheering.

What about the screening after that? If the movie had come out a year or two after the novel’s publication, it would have knocked the socks off of people whose standard for superhero movies was Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, but will today’s audiences be aware of it as anything more than another film that is ‘based on a graphic novel?’

The color scheme is from The Dark Knight and 300. The sense of the alienation of powerful beings from everyday people is from Superman Returns. The idea of a superhero as something the public is afraid of is in movies from Hancock to The Hulk.

As for the public being right to fear superheroes, even Peter Parker turned to the dark side for a while, and he was played by Tobey Maguire. From outright immoral supers, like the ones in Wanted, to the heroes of Sin City, who had the welfare of the downtrodden at heart, but whose skills tended towards being able to quickly dispose of bodies, to the neurotics of superheroes being milked for comedic value in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, to Batman, one of the most straight laced of superheroes, being tangentially involved in the deaths of super villains, it’s more difficult to find a superhero movie in which the superheroes are unquestionably good than it is to find one that looks at them through more jaundiced eyes.

I’m not saying that Watchmen shouldn’t be made or that it has nothing to contribute. That would be like arguing against the filming of an Elmore Leonard story because the world already has enough heist movies. If anything Watchmen deserves more acclaim for originality, since it was one of the books that pioneered the more skeptical view of superheroes that has become the standard.

However, there is no denying that that view has become the standard. It’s odd that the innovation and influence of Watchmen in the medium of comics will probably lessen its impact when it becomes a film. Success has a price.

Hey, there. I didn’t have time to post about my trip in time, but at the moment, I’m kicking it in Arizona for a few days. I should be back Friday or so, but in the meantime, hermanos has the slack and that’s fine with me.

Just three things of note from my trip so far:

1) On the plane flight, I sat next to none other than former WWF Intercontinental and Tag Champion Tito Santana! God, that was awesome. We talked for a while about many things, but that guy was a complete class act. Totally friendly, good natured and still looks great. At first I didn’t want to say anything because I thought he was too young to be Tito.

2) The IMAX theater around here isn’t playing Dark Knight. Instead, they just have a series of educational films that will not make them money. How dense and/or retarded are they for not picking up on the goddamn Batman? It boggles the mind.

3) While at the local mall, I stepped into a KB Toys for the sake of looking at some action figures. Now, this store looks like they just get a series of figures, sell the ones worth selling and keep a never-ending supply of the ones nobody wants for years. For instance, for the Marvel Legends figures, I found about 15 Longshots and maybe 2 Lady Deathstrikes. Then I discovered a bargain bin of Rocky Balboa figures. At first I was excited. Rocky figures? That means I could pick up a sweet figure of Clubber Lang or Drago for cheap. Maybe if I’m lucky there will be an Apollo Creed in there.

Instead, I just found a huge pile of figures for the announcers and commentators. Not just for Rocky Balboa, but for the old movies as well. Who would want this? I’m serious. Who would ever want one of these? No kid, that’s for sure. I don’t think there are any fans of the movies who are licking their lips over this. I can’t comprehend how someone thought those would be a good idea.

That’s all for now. Be back in a couple days.

Usually, whenever a big comic book movie comes out, I’m there with a little article about comparing the film to the novelization. After all, the novelizations are based on earlier scripts of the movie and shed some light on what was taken out. Sometimes things are for the better. Sometimes they’re for the worse.

There’s a reason I’m so late with the Dennis O’Neil adaptation of Dark Knight. While the books for Marvel movies come out about a month or so before release, it was decided, for spoiler purposes likely, that Dark Knight would be released as a strict-on-sale title. It came out the same day as the movie, but my Barnes and Noble didn’t receive it until days later. As a fun aside, O’Neil himself came to the store, wondering if we had it yet.

At first I wasn’t even going to bother. Reading the book after seeing the movie didn’t sound like as much fun. That decision changed after seeing what I have to call the best movie of the summer. I picked up a copy and spent the next week or so reading it.

I should point out that this is going to be spoiler-heavy, but this is a comic site and you are a person reading a comic site. If you haven’t seen Dark Knight by now and haven’t at least been spoiled about the scene where David Allen Grier appears as Oswald Cobblepot, then there’s probably something wrong with you.

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