Comic book movies: Marvel vanquishes DC

Burton was in the "executive consultant" role for the Schumacher Bataman movies, so he shares some of the blame. And both Batman 89 and "Returns" have aged very, VERY badly -- in some ways now they seem less serious than the 1960s teevee series.

And his early plans for a Superman movie -- Nicolas Cage, for christ's sake -- Superman born on Earth, unable to fly, battling giant spiders? Jesus Christ.

"Superman Returns" was an OK 100-minute movie buried in a 150-minute bucket of emo schlock.

Get rid of the kid, get rid of Holo Jor-El, and get rid of the idiotic love triangle, it would have been all right. And quit genuflecting in front of the altar of Richard Donner.

 

I enjoyed large portions of Superman Returns. Thought anything involving Lex was awful though.

 

Spacey-Lex was astronomically better than Hackman-Lex doing his Shecky Greene standup comedy routine (although that didn't take much).

But yet again we have Lex Luthor, Einstein-level genius, hanging around with functional moron henchmen and babbling bimbos. And, for God's sake, if you're going to keep a bouncing bimbo around for eye-candy value, shouldn't she be about eleventy-seven gazillion times hotter than Parker Posey?

The whole crap about Lex deciding to seduce the lonely old widow and "show her pleasures she has never known" (EWWWW!!!) in order to get "operating funds" was just ridiculous. Luthor is an intellect towering over pretty much any mere mortal on Earth. You mean to tell me he can't figure out in about 45 seconds how to hack into the Metropolis National Bank computer and divert $50 million of their accounts into his own pocket? Instead he has to go power-munching on 90-year old Noel Neill?

What was the Lexcorp Criminal Empire doing while Big Daddy was in jail, playing bocce ball? The boss can't take a few months off to cool his heels and everything goes to pieces?

The "Fire to the People" speech was actually brilliant -- that's the way an intellectual megalomaniac like Lex Luthor would actually talk.

At least we got one scene which actually showed that Lex Luthor really hated Superman. Hackman-Lex never acted like he even disliked him very much.

 

I'll say this for the Marvel franchises: They don't seem particularly weighed down with the prospect of mediocrity.

Ed Norton Hulk/Iron Man 2/Thor are not what I'd call inspired pieces of cinema. Superman Returns, whatever its flaws, is much more thoughtful and weighty than those three films.

But those movies were a means to an end. Thor, arguably the worst of recent Marvel films, clearly had to be made before The Avengers, once you see The Avengers.

 

WB is useless. The few credits they have go not to the studios but the creators themselves. Christopher Nolan saved Batman. And let's not forget that superheroes were exclusively kids' fare until the Salkinds handed control to Dick Donner and Tom Mankiewicz for Superman. But really, only two of those four movies were any good (although I still crack up at Richard Pryor in Superman III). I enjoyed Superman Returns, but it should have started from scratch rather than rehash most of the original ... which is still a strong movie, but after more than 30 years, well, it's seriously dated.

Don't even get me started on "Superman needs to be dark." No, not really. We got a depressed Superman, it wasn't received as well as the studio wanted, and now we get a reboot. If anything, just stay true to the character. And don't give me that "you can't relate to Superman and his morals" either. Captain America was a strong movie about a goody-goody boy scout hero type.

What kills me is that Marvel Studios is juggling all these franchises for the past decade, going between one production company or studio to another (Sony, Fox, and now owned by Disney, etc.), while WB owns DC. Everything is under one roof, the right hand should know what the left is doing, yadda yadda, and they still can't make it work.

Enough ranting, or I'm going to have a stroke.

 

That reminds me of one of the most impressive things about what Marvel has done. They made this work without so many popular characters. Spider-Man is Marvel's most popular character. I'm not sure which has more readers of its titles now, X-Men or Avengers, but that would been more in the X-Men's favor around the time Iron Man came out. Not having Wolverine alone is a loss, though his solo film was extremely flawed.

There is a reason that Spider-Man and Wolverine are Avengers now. The Avengers needed a boost as a comic book property, so Marvel finally just put its most popular characters on the team. Making the movie such a success without them is damn impressive. Imagine DC trying to make a Justice League movie without Batman.

 

I'm reminded of the nonsense of a few years ago here, when some said the Hulk is Marvel's other Most Popular Character.

 

Has anyone posted this yet?

www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7906504/the-surprisingly-complicated-legacy-marvel-comics-legend-stan-lee

 

The Hulk seems to be very popular with kids. I know my 8-year-old is a big fan, and she is just now starting to take an interest in this stuff.