Probably no surprise. Growing up, I loved comic books. My cousin introduced me to them at about age 11 or so, and I collected Superman religiously for about four years. Unfortunately, I'm not a nerdy enough to understand all the major events DC or Marvel does so they can reboot their universes every few years, but I'm a fan of well-done comic book films.
Sadly, Marvel has been kicking DC's butt when it comes to film, at least, as far as live action goes. My wife and I watch every animated superhero film when they come out. DC wipes the floor with animation. The DCAU (DC Animated Universe) was stupendous. I was sad to see it end. It gave us four AWESOME shows: Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, and the Justice League. Then DC also had two incredible seasons of Young Justice, though not part of the DCAU. If you haven't watched any of those shows, you're missing out.
Marvel has had three animated shows that I LOVED. All of them are were cancelled prematurely: Wolverine and the X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man, and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The first two gave us only 26 AMAZING episodes each. The third was two solid seasons. Some people are huge fans of the old school X-Men show, but I never watched it. I tried to, but thought it was a little too cheesy for my tastes.
Now we get to live action films. DC first: I know some people worship the new Batman Trilogy. I like them, don't love them. Batman Begins was great, but the other two had all kinds of plot problems. Very disappointing. Green Lantern was. . . not great. Not much attention given to character, unfortunately. Bad script. Overall, a failure, in my opinion. My two favorite DC live action films are Man of Steel and Watchmen. Both of them happen to be directed by Zack Snyder. I love the worlds he creates and the thought he puts into action scenes. He seems to strike a great balance between character and action. The Man of Steel film is obviously intended to reboot the DC films to lead up to a big, gigantic Justice League film, which is akin to ....
MARVEL! Now, keep in mind that when I say the Marvel live-action films, I'm leaving out Sony's sloppy handling of the Spider-man properties and FOX's A.T.R.O.C.I.O.U.S. handling of the Fantastic Four and X-Men properties. FOX is desperately trying to pull all their characters together for a big team-up like Marvel is doing, but we all know it's far, far too late for that. The X-Men films are all over the place story wise. An absolute mess. Marvel, however, had a plan from the beginning, and their patience has paid off.
I know not everyone loves The Avengers, but it is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time for a reason. It was a great "team up" film. And they are planning bigger and better things. As you know Thanos was teased at the end of the film as the "guy behind the curtain." Naturally, everyone expects Thanos to be the big bad of the 2nd Avengers film, but now the title of the movie has been revealed to be Avengers: Age of Ultron. GASP! What? Not Thanos!
No, according to Marvel talking heads, Thanos is being saved, probably for Avengers 3! Which means, we'll have more movies leading up to this colossus match-up between the Avengers and Thanos. Avengers 1, Avengers 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor 2 (maybe?), and perhaps Ant-Man. All in all, a very exciting place to be. It's been impressive to see Marvel, if nothing else, take the time to introduce characters, make quality films, and do these stories justice. For a comic book fan like me, it's something I never thought I'd see. I know some out there are sick of the comic book films, but I hope we're just seeing the beginning.
Next post, I'll talk about what types of stories interest me, and why I write the way I do.
Sadly, Marvel has been kicking DC's butt when it comes to film, at least, as far as live action goes. My wife and I watch every animated superhero film when they come out. DC wipes the floor with animation. The DCAU (DC Animated Universe) was stupendous. I was sad to see it end. It gave us four AWESOME shows: Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, and the Justice League. Then DC also had two incredible seasons of Young Justice, though not part of the DCAU. If you haven't watched any of those shows, you're missing out.
Marvel has had three animated shows that I LOVED. All of them are were cancelled prematurely: Wolverine and the X-Men, Spectacular Spider-man, and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The first two gave us only 26 AMAZING episodes each. The third was two solid seasons. Some people are huge fans of the old school X-Men show, but I never watched it. I tried to, but thought it was a little too cheesy for my tastes.
Now we get to live action films. DC first: I know some people worship the new Batman Trilogy. I like them, don't love them. Batman Begins was great, but the other two had all kinds of plot problems. Very disappointing. Green Lantern was. . . not great. Not much attention given to character, unfortunately. Bad script. Overall, a failure, in my opinion. My two favorite DC live action films are Man of Steel and Watchmen. Both of them happen to be directed by Zack Snyder. I love the worlds he creates and the thought he puts into action scenes. He seems to strike a great balance between character and action. The Man of Steel film is obviously intended to reboot the DC films to lead up to a big, gigantic Justice League film, which is akin to ....
MARVEL! Now, keep in mind that when I say the Marvel live-action films, I'm leaving out Sony's sloppy handling of the Spider-man properties and FOX's A.T.R.O.C.I.O.U.S. handling of the Fantastic Four and X-Men properties. FOX is desperately trying to pull all their characters together for a big team-up like Marvel is doing, but we all know it's far, far too late for that. The X-Men films are all over the place story wise. An absolute mess. Marvel, however, had a plan from the beginning, and their patience has paid off.
I know not everyone loves The Avengers, but it is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time for a reason. It was a great "team up" film. And they are planning bigger and better things. As you know Thanos was teased at the end of the film as the "guy behind the curtain." Naturally, everyone expects Thanos to be the big bad of the 2nd Avengers film, but now the title of the movie has been revealed to be Avengers: Age of Ultron. GASP! What? Not Thanos!
No, according to Marvel talking heads, Thanos is being saved, probably for Avengers 3! Which means, we'll have more movies leading up to this colossus match-up between the Avengers and Thanos. Avengers 1, Avengers 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor 2 (maybe?), and perhaps Ant-Man. All in all, a very exciting place to be. It's been impressive to see Marvel, if nothing else, take the time to introduce characters, make quality films, and do these stories justice. For a comic book fan like me, it's something I never thought I'd see. I know some out there are sick of the comic book films, but I hope we're just seeing the beginning.
Next post, I'll talk about what types of stories interest me, and why I write the way I do.
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