Joe Colton from G.I. Joe, Evil Superman from Superman III and Star Spangled Captain American.
Tag: captain america
Man of Steel: The Fantastic Untold Origin Story (Not Really)
This summer, DC Entertainment is set to try and launch a new superhero movie franchise with Superman. Again. For the fourth time. And while I’m happy to see this strange visitor from another planet return to the big screen in Man of Steel, this time directed by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen) with a script by David Goyer (the most recent Batman trilogy of films), I have to wonder why there’s a need to reboot a character like Superman at all? Is there really anyone out there at this point who DOESN’T know the origin of Superman, or at least have some grasp on who Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent is?
Overall, comic book reboot movies have been popular as of late. Over the last few years the X-Men franchise was rebooted with X-Men: First Class, Spider-Man with The Amazing Spider-Man, Batman with Batman Begins and even (yes) Superman a few years back in Superman Returns that ultimately wasn’t successful and would lead to Man of Steel.
But why reboot? Why not keep telling a continuing story of the character with different actors and a different creative team ala the James Bond franchise? Here’s why I think that comic book movies, and comic books too, keep going back and retelling the same origin story over and over again; the origin story represents the only real a permanent change that will ever happen to the character.
Think about it. In the Iron Man (2008) origin, Tony Stark goes from being a self-centered weapons manufacturer who makes billions off of wars and conflicts to someone who’s brought to his knees when he’s almost killed by terrorists to a man who changes his corporation to do good and builds a super-suit of armor to try and benefit humanity. That’s a lot of changes and one heck of a character arc for Stark in Iron Man.
But in Iron Man 2 and 3 Stark doesn’t change too much. His character arc consists of him using his super-suit of armor to fight the baddies and protect the innocent. And the same goes for Stark in The Avengers too. In that movie, there’s a lot of Stark’s witty banter and him fighting armies of bad guys, but there’s not a lot of change there either.
Let’s not forget Thor (2011) where a literal god who’s full of himself and wants to rule because he sees it as his birth right is humbled and becomes worthy enough to lead and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) as well who goes from a literal 90lb weakling wanting to fight for his country in WWII to risking his life to become a super-soldier in order to do so. But the only change either of these characters has in The Avengers is screen time and how many of the baddies they each take down.
I suppose there’s an argument to be made that the Bruce Wayne character in The Dark Knight Rises does change from the previous films — in the movie he starts out as a retired recluse broken from his past adventures. But most of these changes are physical and are only at the beginning of the movie. Minutes after a crippled Howard Hughes-like Bruce Wayne is introduced he’s rappelling out of windows and is back to his old gravely-voiced Batman self.
I think it all goes back to an old axiom of comic books that says telling stories that have the illusion of change are better than ones with actual change. At the end of the day no matter if Captain America is killed by a sniper’s bullet or Superman dies fighting some gigantic alien terror, in no time it will be revealed that the bullet that “killed” Cap really froze him in space and time or that Superman was brought back to life via alien technologies.
And within a few issues Cap will be back to being Cap and Superman being Superman.
So that’s why movies like The Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men: First Class and even the upcoming Man of Steel retell the origin of the character(s) in a reboot movie, it’s the only chance the audience will ever get to see the characters change and act as a reference point to what they become.
Man of Steel, really Superman VI, is set to be released in theaters Friday, June 14.
18 inch (1/4 Scale) Iron Man & Captain America Action Figures
Marvel Movie Madness Starring Iron Man
Marvel Entertainment is a studio accustomed to making hit movies. Last summer they released The Avengers that raked in $1.5 billion in ticket sales, the year before that Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor $359 million, the summer before that Iron Man 2 $312 million… And this summer brings Marvel’s Iron Man 3.
in Iron Man 3
Starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, so far the previous two Iron Man films have found Stark developing the Iron Man technology then doing his best to make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. This third installment features Stark doing battle with the evil Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), Iron Man’s fiercest foe yet who will stop at nothing to destroy Stark and Iron Man along with him.
Directed and co-written by Shane Black, writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and writer of The Monster Squad, Iron Man 3 is the seventh film in this ultra-successful series of Marvel universe movies.
Honestly, I have no doubt that Iron Man 3 will only add to Marvel’s success and that the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier out in 2014 and Thor: The Dark World out this winter won’t top the first ones in that series as well or that The Avengers 2 won’t smash the records that were originally set by the first The Avengers.
I think Marvel’s real problem moving forward is that they’ve run out of new top tier characters like Iron Man, Captain America or Thor to build film franchises around.
What many might not know is that Marvel doesn’t own the film rights to The Fantastic Four, X-Men or Spider-Man – other movie studios do. So don’t expect to see Reed Richards helping Tony Stark or Wolverine battling Sentinels along with the Incredible Hulk anytime soon. And what the lack of new top tier characters means for Marvel is that they’re going to start building new film franchises around secondary teams and characters that the general public has probably never heard of.
Out next year is a movie based on the cosmic book Guardians of the Galaxy. What, you’ve never heard of the Guardians before? They’re a team of space-based superheroes including Star-Lord, Drax the Destroyer, the living tree Groot and the aptly named Rocket Raccoon.
In addition to the Guardians, there’s also an Ant Man movie in the works. Ant Man was an original Avenger who has the power to grow very big or very small and has the ability to control ants with his mind too.
And the literal billion dollar question with teams like the Guardians or characters like Ant Man is if the characters seem outwardly goofy like “living tree” or “controls ants with his mind” and if they don’t star people most are already familiar with, namely Robert Downy Jr., will anyone other than the comic book geeks go see it?
Part of me thinks that with the success of The Avengers the movie going public will at least try any upcoming Marvel movie, especially how Marvel does such a good job of tying their films together. Iron Man tied to The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk tied to Iron Man 2, Iron Man 2 tied to Captain America, Captain America tied to The Avengers. And The Avengers introduced a whole plethora of cosmic characters to the Marvel movie universe that would logically include the Guardians too. And Ant Man is already a Avenger so there’s a familiarity there already with him. So, as long as Marvel keeps doing what they’re doing they should be fine.
But another part of me worries about the future of the Marvel movies. The Iron Man and The Avengers movies were a hits at the box office and the first Captain America, Thor and The Incredible Hulk movies were successful too, but only just. It seems that if any of the upcoming sequels like Iron Man 3 or second Captain America or Thor movies stumble at the box office or if movies like The Guardians of the Galaxy fail to connect with an audience Thanos might be the least of the Marvel movie universe’s worries.
