The Week in Geek 8/6/14

So, this week, Black Nerd Problems published an exchange between me and my editor, Will Evans about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and whether it's a Pass or a Play. Granted, I argued for seeing the movie mainly because thus far, I haven't personally seen any aspect of it that makes the whole thing a "non starter" like it has with some. In truth, I think the thing that has hindered the movie before we even got a trailer is the perpetual press junket. I harped on this a little bit in my Comic Con commentary last week but as a whole, (running the risk of sounding like an old man) I think cinema in general has been somewhat hindered in the era of social media.

Don't get me wrong. As a member of "New Media", I recognized how much progress has been made as far as independent property being circulated and having so many options for alternatives to hoping for the old mainstream venues to notice you. However, for the mainstream big budget films, I remember seeing nothing more than a thirty second trailer and maybe an endorsement from some fast food joint and being able to go into a movie cold with an open mind about what I was about to see. BvS is a prime example of how there is a headline now to tell you every single level of the production process to the point where there's no mystery anymore. Marvel is a pretty good example of an outfit that knows how to use the media engine to its advantage, control what gets out and treat their fanbase to some quality tidbits for its loyalty, but even with that in mind, I still basically walked into Guardians of the Galaxy KNOWING it's going to be awesome as opposed to the degree of wonder that should come from a Marvel movie that doesn't feature conventional superheroes (though, yes, I get that it's in a superhero filled universe). In any case, I'm not exactly #TeamZackSnyder, but I think I've seen enough that movie deserves a we'll see.

Also, I'll have a few thoughts about Guardians of the Galaxy up some time tomorrow.

My comic reviews for the week are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. This week, I took a look at.....

Why the FUCK would you point your flashlight at Killer Croc
and NOT YOUR GUN?!

Batman Eternal: I think every comic has a make/break issue that can harm the quality at any given time. With Warren Ellis books, it's the overall patience of the reader. With Jonathan Hickman books, it's his tendency to meander in the world he builds for the reader. With Greg Land books, it's Greg Land. With Batman Eternal, at any given time, the artwork can easily sink this boat for that week. The gift AND the curse of having Dustin Nguyen on the title was that it raised the bar. Anyone who's seen his previous work on Batman books knows that his style feels so natural for this universe. Then, for Andy Clarke to have to follow up behind Nguyen's gorgeous work was rough. It was a decent job, but after a plot where some of the panels were simply terrifying, chasing monsters in the sewers should have felt much scarier and atmospheric than this did. Hopefully, this improves next week.

Iron Fist, The Living Weapon: I'm really having a hard time deciding whether we're going to look back in a couple of months and find this to be a sleeper hit by the time Kaare Andrews is done....or if Marvel is going to cancel it prematurely and leave us wondering what happened to this run in a few years when someone else comes along and gives it the Shang Chi treatment (I'm sorry, but that book is awful).

San Diego Comic Con Post Game Show

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.

So, I Had An Idea For DC (They Can Have It For Free)....

I realize I might be late to the party on this one (probably a side effect of not previously caring), but I was looking at my usual news sources earlier this week and came across the announcement that Jesse Eisenberg would be playing Lex Luthor in the much discussed Man of Steel sequel, Revenge of the Steel. The internet collectively had an epileptic seizure....a lot like when the story broke that Ben Affleck would be playing Batman. Then there was that hissy fit people threw when Motorcycle Girl from the Fast and Furious movies was casted as Wonder Woman ....and when sources hinted that Doomsday and Nightwing might make an appearance....or when the rumors went out that the Rock MIGHT be playing Green Lantern....or when rumor had it that Denzel Washington MIGHT be playing Green Lantern. Long story short: for a sequel to a movie that was hated just as much as it was loved (I'm in the "love" column, by the way) and hasn't even gone into pre production yet, people have certainly found themselves very emotionally invested with every step of the process.

Then, I wondered to myself about marketing. Now, I am not a promotional genius by any stretch of the imagination, but you know what would be a interesting (though not necessarily good) way to compete with Marvel's "Cineverse"? Since the public pretty much lost its shit at the mere announcement of Batman and Superman being in the same movie together, what if DC just kept doing that? Think about it. Over the years, DC has proven themselves to be a pony of few tricks (depending on how many they can successfully borrow from Marvel in attempts to be them), so it would stand to reason that if their readers are entertained by that set of logistics in their comics, they could get away with doing it with movies as well. They could totally get away with leaking alleged "details" about POSSIBLE casting choices and scripting concepts that may or may not even actually be in play.

And the greatest thing about it would be they wouldn't actually have to commit to any of these ideas because that wouldn't actually be the point. The point would be to get the nerds talking about it. See, the thing about us nerds is that even when we hate stuff, we'll discuss it into the dirt. Seriously, ask any real comic nerd to list all the things they found wrong with Green Lantern. They'll write you a book longer than War and Peace. Even if they were completely indifferent to Green Lantern, you could probably get a ten page essay just on that. That said, if you get the fans talking about the movie, whether they had any initial interest in seeing it in the first place, just start throwing about names and possible plots. We'll all start writing the movie in our heads and deciding whether the movie we just "wrote" sucks or not. And then most of us will go see the movie, but not because we're invested in the characters, but because we want to know whether we're right or wrong. If the movie sucks, it's got our money. If the movie's awesome, it's got our money and then more money from dvd sales and comic tie-ins. In other words, we'll have fallen for the trap.

I'm not sure, but I might be onto something. DC should totally give this a shot.