The Week In Geek 1/28/15

So, the trailer for this summer's Fantastic Four reboot film debuted this week and...umm...wow. Now, I'll admit that I have basically maligned the production process of this movie on almost every level. I mean, the studio's elevator pitch sounded pretty bad and far removed enough from the source material that it was a turn off from the start. And the on-set pictures of Doom still look horrible. But then, I thought about a post I wrote a little more than a year ago about how fanboys need to learn to let go a little bit when it comes to movie adaptations. As I mentioned in said post, the thing that fanboys often forget is that over the years, there have been aspects of film adaptations (and television) that are folded into the source material and, at times, heralded as gospel within the lore. Despite my colleague, Jordan Calhoun's disdain for the character's status on Arrow, John Diggle has now been introduced in the current Green Arrow comic due to his notoriety on the show. Phil Coulson, after his becoming so popular, Marvel brought him back from the dead for the express purpose of squeezing a spinoff show out of him...is now a mainstay comic book character that actually doesn't suck in Jeph Loeb's hands (because that shit happens often). In other words, sometimes good things come of movie properties that are SO good, we actually want them to stick around in the comics.

After listening to Josh Trank's commentary about the trailer, getting some insight about his grasp of the source material, it actually sold me on giving this movie an honest shot. I get fandom's perpetual fear of Hollywood gentrifying comics forever, but honestly, I don't think that's the case here. Don't get me wrong. Trailers have deceived me before and for all I know, this movie could very well still be the shitshow I originally predicted. But I am saying the trailer has elevated thinking to a minimum of "Okay, Josh Trank, I'm listening."

Anyway, don't forget to check out my opinion piece on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Also, my comic reviews for the week are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. As always, feel free to like, dislike, share and dissect at your leisure. This week, I took a look at....

Thor: Okay, if it's not completely obvious who Lady Thor is at this point, you haven't been reading Jason Aaron's Thor work as closely as you should have been. I've been saying it since the first issue and the evidence is just piling up now. I'm not going to say it anymore. Just remember who was right all along.

Uncanny X-Men: You know, it's amazing how often these X-Men catch all kinds of trouble and turmoil because of time travel and STILL think this shit is a good idea. And they don't even train the new ones to know better. If I were an X-man, the front door would real, "Fair Warning: The Future WILL try to kill you.

Batman Eternal: I love seeing Bluebird in action at last. Even furthermore, I love that her trademark is just having a giant fucking rifle. I love seeing everything from Batman #28 finally coming to pass. I love when a writer promises you a moment in advance and the resulting story is that writer reverse engineering that moment, unraveling the cogs and gears that sum up such a moment.

Batman: I think we can all agree that Scott Snyder is making Endgame into one of the creepiest Joker stories I have ever read.

Because You Wanted Me To Talk About Guardians of the Galaxy......

I'm going to try not doing a fleshed out review like usual for Guardians of the Galaxy since EVERYONE has kicked out a review at this point. In fact, Chace Morris and Whitney Walker collaborated to do a fantastic review for Black Nerd Problems that's absolutely worth your time.

I will say that it was a shockingly enjoyable film that is probably the best representation of where Marvel's at in terms of the superhero genre of film. I mean, they're getting REALLY good at this. I hate to make this a "Versus DC" thing again because it seems like I've been doing that a lot lately (though you almost HAVE to, seeing as they're the only two in the field and we're not likely to get that Spawn reboot Todd McFarlane promises almost annually), but in terms of quality and output, they're doing laps around anything DC is doing right now. Sure, you could make the argument that The Dark Knight trilogy is where the bar is because Those Are Incredible Goddamned Movies, but it's also drastically different from virtually anything Marvel puts out (often times, its most effective moments....and there are many....are more crime drama than superheroics), it's comparing apples and oranges.

The Dark Knight series was an experiment in what most superhero films had been up until a certain point: Taking comics and distorting them to create a visual experience unique to cinema in a way that wouldn't necessarily do as well translating back to comic format. In other words, Nolan did well in taking elements of Batman: Year One and Knightfall and putting them more in line with the aesthetic he's known for, but those movies (most notably Dark Knight Rises) wouldn't be as effective for fans as a comic. Guardians of the Galaxy was one of the closest I've ever seen a movie being a 1:1 translation of comic book sensibilities to the screen, aside from maybe Sin City and Watchmen (which was, perhaps, a little too enslaved to the source material).

The movie tailored itself to what its principal cast does well. Drax is pretty much the role Dave Bautista has been TRYING to play since he started acting so this worked out very well for him. I am convinced that Josh Brolin could have been on screen with no make up or costuming and still been an effective Thanos. Right now, nobody else in Hollywood does the "sorta squinting death stare" as well as he does. Who would have thought Vin Diesel would be given three words to say in different inflections for an entire movie.....and end up with maybe the most poignant role of his entire career? And Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon was so good, I almost had to remind myself that was Bradley Cooper's voice. There were so many naysayers before there was even a trailer (I'm looking at you, Cracked), making fun about a movie with a talking raccoon as if Man of Steel didn't make Superman's dad basically the best Siri update ever. All those shadebenders almost HAVE to shut up now.

As a whole, Guardians, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, have shown exactly why Marvel's rather rabid fanbase remains reasonably loyal to what is basically the monolith of superhero movies at this point. I stand by my statement that Batman v Superman won't be a terrible venture like everyone thinks, but as far as competition (and let's face it....the Big Two ARE directly competing), DC has a lot of ground to cover.

Oh and Chris Pratt's slightly more irreverent portrayal of Peter Quill confirmed what I've known for some time now: Han Solo has become a genre of film.

Why Fans Should Suck It Up About Comic Book Movies

Recently, I came across an article from a conservative blogger about how he'd elected to never spend another dime on superhero films because Hollywood, at every turn, has completely raped his childhood and made the superheroes he grew up completely unbearable and he's not going to take it anymore.  Now, I'm acknowledging ahead of time that his blog post is mostly poorly argued and unresearched (which is the most I should probably expect from what is basically the Fox News version of my own blog), but his complaints are not uncommon among the fickle and sometimes downright hateful mob that is comic fandom. Granted, I understand why people would complain that studios are better off sticking closer to the source material. After all, NOBODY wants another Jonah Hex or X-Men: The Last Stand. Still, here a few things this guy....as well as a lot of fans....should consider.

1). Faithfulness to the source material does NOT always equate to a good movie. I mean, for a commendable project that packed tons of material into a two hour movie, Watchmen was such an imitation (despite some people having perfect bodies when they shouldn't, but....Hollywood) that it was practically hermetically sealed in its original comic packaging. And even still, it was met with mixed reviews among critics and fans. Tim Story's Fantastic Four was moderately close the comic (MODERATELY...except for Doctor Doom being a superpowered Donald Trump analog) and even that was considered mainly a failed attempt.

Green Lantern pretty much hit all the bullet points required of the Geoff Johns-ified version of Hal Jordan's (except for Movie Hal Jordan being a complete pussy) origin story and yet it still managed to be chastised as one of the worst comic movies of the past five years. Also, it eventually leads to fans complaining that they're not seeing anything they've never seen before. For years, Superman loyalists have whined and whined that we haven't seen anything out of those movies (until Man of Steel) that we've never seen before ("Really, Lex Luthor again???"). Now, I think that they're asking a LOT from Superman's list of villains, but they also have a point in the fact that remaining too close to what comic fans know doesn't do anything to add to the mythology of the hero in question. Taking an entire comic book and pasting onto the silver screen doesn't always lead to success. This leads to my next point......

2). New ideas from directors have been known to enhance comic book lore. When directors are allowed to toy with certain aspects of the source material, THAT is when innovation happens. People bitch and moan about X-Men all the time. Some people don't like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine because historically, Wolverine is a short, hairy guy who likes beer. This is entertaining enough for a comic book until you realize that if you translate that same description to a movie storyboard where you have cast a REAL actor, the person you're describing is Danny Devito.

I wasn't kidding. Giant smoke kraken.

Honestly, Green Lantern could have stood some outside innovation from Martin Campbell (except maybe not making Parallax out to be a former Green Lantern turned giant smoke kraken). General Zod was essentially a throwaway villain from an obscure issue of Adventure Comics until Richard Donner brought him to the forefront in Superman II. Furthermore, even though it was always canon that he was a small town kid, it wasn't really established that Clark Kent was raised on a farm in Kansas until Donner's movie placed Smallville in Kansas. Gotham City wasn't a perpetually gray, crime infested wasteland of art nouveau and towering gothic cathedrals until Tim Burton and Anton Furst designed it that way. More often than not, it takes a movie, something absorbed by the collective consciousness (comic nerds and casual moviegoers alike) to establish baseline characteristics for a superhero or their surroundings which simultaneously why Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man for the forseeable future and why DC could only benefit from making a Wonder Woman movie.

3). Once a comic becomes a movie, it's not exclusively yours anymore. You know who understands concepts like this? Children. When my friends and I played make believe Power Rangers, it was easy. There were commonly six of us and there were five Power Rangers (the Mighty Morphin days....Sweet Jesus, I'm old) so, except for the inevitable argument over who would be the Green Ranger, it was simple. Then, someone else would come along and want to play with us. Now, the likelihood of them wanting to be Zordon, the giant, omniscient floating head that told the Rangers to do shit was slim to none (although, in retrospect, when I put it that way, why the FUCK didn't I ever want to be Zordon), so they wanted to be a Ranger, too. Despite there only being six Rangers, there were, of course, more than six colors in the spectrum of colors, so fuck it. Little Amy can be the Violet Ranger and she can have a giant Velociraptor robot. Peace was maintained and playtime could continue.

The moral of that little story was that when other people want to be a part of what you're into, you have to share. In this day and age, movie adaptations are ideally the sign that a larger audience (Hollywood, non comic nerds, kids, whatever) wants to be in on what was once a very niche fiction of, at it's best, a million readers. Nerds (I'm guilty of this, too) have to understand that it's inevitable that when something becomes popular enough, corporate America will create a medium where it can be consumed by anyone. This happens with rap, spoken word, art house film-making, etc. Comic books aren't immune. The sad truth is that if Hollywood can fail us by keeping Channing Tatum in movies and allowing James Cameron to make Avatar sequels, it's not too farfetched that they would fuck up Ghost Rider and Elektra.

In summary....SUCK IT UP.

Justice League Movie: Outlook Not Good

For those of you who've asked me if I think there's going to be a Justice League movie anytime soon..... My Prediction: Maybe, but it won't happen anytime soon. Why, you ask?


-There's a big hole to dig themselves out of. Too many of DC's properties are tied with Warner Brothers in a way that leaves them just the indentured servants, working as consultants and whatnot.


-Even after they find a way out of that, they still have to start tying these characters together. Even if Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale wanted to do more Batman (which they don't), it's very unlikely that his gritty, semi-realistic style of storytelling would gel well enough that his Batman could exist in a larger superpowered community. Then again, Hawkeye exists in the Avengers, so you never know.


-The Superman franchise is still looking for forgivness. Don't get me wrong. I have complete faith in Zak Snyder's directing skills (despite wack ass Sucker Punch), but it's going to take a lot to get the taste of Superman Returns out of our mouths. You know...like maybe Superman could actually punch a bad guy at some point.


-Nobody really knows what the hell is happening with the Wonder Woman project. That makes three of your top characters that need a fresh reboot even though I don't think Batman and Superman need origin stories at this point. You would have to look far and wide for someone who doesn't know that Superman is from another planet and Batman's parents were killed when he was a kid.


-Even after you establish a contained cinematic universe for all these characters (I'd go with a Flash movie to start), it would take amnesia, an alien invasion and Oprah giving away coupons for massage parlor happy endings to make people forget that Green Lantern was easily one of the worse cinematic superhero experiences to occur in the past five years.

I'm not saying it won't ever happen, but it'll be five years at the very least!