Okay, so this week was mainly the San Diego Comic Con fallout. I was scouring the internet for the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer I keep hearing about and I had what I realize is a long overdue epiphany. I'm starting to see why smaller cons are gaining popularity these days. It seems like each year, SDCC becomes more and more of a press conference that barely involves comics and involves fans even less. I am convinced that Comic Con could run just the same if there were no audience at all. The whole point of any convention is that it's an assembly for like-minded people to generate fellowship. With that said, I like cons the way I like church: If I need binoculars, bifocals, bionic eyes or any other vision enhancing apparatus to see the talent (preacher), I don't need to be there.
Anyway, basically, as most things in comic fandom seem to do, this year came down to Marvel vs. DC vying for control of the movie fanboy hype machine. Marvel's big one-two punch was bringing out the cast for a few minutes and presenting the special super secret Avengers trailer. Now, for the record, this is NOT the part where I show up with the special super secret Avengers trailer because I don't have it. I mean NOBODY has it. This Disney money has gotten Marvel better connected than the CIA. Seriously. Batman himself couldn't get a hold of this shit. I just want to make sure everyone realizes how irregular it is for something of this magnitude to occur at a high profile con and to have not leaked by now. However, there's a pretty good description of the epic sneak peek available if you can't wait until "eventually."
Meanwhile, DC hit every one with a haymaker in the form a teaser for the impending Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The most notable aspect was that Batfleck was rocking the infamous heavy duty armor that Batman wore when he gave Superman that #AllKryptoniteEverything ass whupping in The Dark Knight Returns (which ISN'T canon, Bat-fanatics). Superman floating in the sky with his heat vision all queued up was reminiscent of his Jim Lee look in Hush (another instance in which the two came to blows). Of course, the trailer was leaked immediately after so the rest of the internet could follow suit in losing their shit over the 40 seconds or so of "holy shit."
So, who really dominated SDCC this year?
In fairness, DC definitely a). had a lot more of the deck stacked against them and b). had a lot more riding on positive reactions to their offering. Marvel has been winning this race as it is, so they could have done the minimum amount and still walked away with a loyal fan base. Why? As they've proven with putting out a schedule of their proposed movies for the next five years, Marvel has a tried and tested product that they can stand by. It's a confidence few moviemaking outfits can lay claim to.
Since BvS was announced, it's like the studio had been on a year long press junket. I mean every single level of production, casting and development has been run up the flagpole and criticized by every blog, news outlet from here to the New York Post. Barack Obama himself hadn't been vetted half as much as Comics' favorite bromance. Especially if you a comic nerd, it's become like a gaudy shopping mall being built right outside your house, having to wake up to the construction, seeing the new hires, watching every stick of furniture being moved in and constantly updating about it on Twitter every hour. They NEEDED a win. There are always going to be naysayers about this venture. They're practically built in. But they had to win some people over and it seems like they did.
Winner: Marvel. At this point, they are a behemoth that's hard to compete with. As of right now, they almost ARE the superhero movie genre. They had the crown before even showing up in San Diego.
Anyway, basically, as most things in comic fandom seem to do, this year came down to Marvel vs. DC vying for control of the movie fanboy hype machine. Marvel's big one-two punch was bringing out the cast for a few minutes and presenting the special super secret Avengers trailer. Now, for the record, this is NOT the part where I show up with the special super secret Avengers trailer because I don't have it. I mean NOBODY has it. This Disney money has gotten Marvel better connected than the CIA. Seriously. Batman himself couldn't get a hold of this shit. I just want to make sure everyone realizes how irregular it is for something of this magnitude to occur at a high profile con and to have not leaked by now. However, there's a pretty good description of the epic sneak peek available if you can't wait until "eventually."
Meanwhile, DC hit every one with a haymaker in the form a teaser for the impending Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The most notable aspect was that Batfleck was rocking the infamous heavy duty armor that Batman wore when he gave Superman that #AllKryptoniteEverything ass whupping in The Dark Knight Returns (which ISN'T canon, Bat-fanatics). Superman floating in the sky with his heat vision all queued up was reminiscent of his Jim Lee look in Hush (another instance in which the two came to blows). Of course, the trailer was leaked immediately after so the rest of the internet could follow suit in losing their shit over the 40 seconds or so of "holy shit."
So, who really dominated SDCC this year?
In fairness, DC definitely a). had a lot more of the deck stacked against them and b). had a lot more riding on positive reactions to their offering. Marvel has been winning this race as it is, so they could have done the minimum amount and still walked away with a loyal fan base. Why? As they've proven with putting out a schedule of their proposed movies for the next five years, Marvel has a tried and tested product that they can stand by. It's a confidence few moviemaking outfits can lay claim to.
Since BvS was announced, it's like the studio had been on a year long press junket. I mean every single level of production, casting and development has been run up the flagpole and criticized by every blog, news outlet from here to the New York Post. Barack Obama himself hadn't been vetted half as much as Comics' favorite bromance. Especially if you a comic nerd, it's become like a gaudy shopping mall being built right outside your house, having to wake up to the construction, seeing the new hires, watching every stick of furniture being moved in and constantly updating about it on Twitter every hour. They NEEDED a win. There are always going to be naysayers about this venture. They're practically built in. But they had to win some people over and it seems like they did.
Winner: Marvel. At this point, they are a behemoth that's hard to compete with. As of right now, they almost ARE the superhero movie genre. They had the crown before even showing up in San Diego.
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