Oh. My. God.

[filkertom]

When Captain America throws his mighty shield. Spoilery as hell, and I DON'T CARE BECAUSE WE'RE GONNA GET THE DAMN THING DONE RIGHT!

Or you could just sing along with this:

Comments

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Oh, HELL YES!

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

seconded

[his-spiffyness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this looks good, but I still want him to punch Hitler!

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Why does Marvel seem to do a consistently better job than DC?
This looks like what Green Lantern should've been, instead of it being the Ryan Reynolds schmuckfest it was.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll point out the Nolan Batman movies and the two Fantastic Four movies as counterpoints, but in general I agree with you.

I think the key is Marvel is more ready to admit that film and comic books are two completely different art forms. What looks great in four color pulp looks stupid when worn by a real human. They also have more experience is really bad film adaptations.

There's also the characters themselves. Superman is a freaking deity. Batman is your typical billionaire/ninja/master detective. The Flash can run faster than light. DC has never put as much effort into making their characters human as Marvel has. Tony Stark has always been an egomaniac alcoholic; so putting that aspect of him into film is easy. What makes Hal Jordan a person? Nothing. Too many DC characters are hero first, person second (or lower).

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Did you see the wonderful Avengers/JLA crossover by Kurt Busiek and George Perez? It was pointed out by the characters that DC heroes are much more accepted by their public than Marvel heroes are accepted by theirs. Which has truly always been the difference between them, and why Stan Lee's going after his characters' foibles was such a big thing in the mid-60s. DC was still doing Jimmy Olsen in drag dating a gorilla, while Spidey had to make the rent and get Aunt May's heart meds while Ben Grimm still occasionally trashed a room because he'd become a monster.

Remember the Neal Adams/Dennis O'Neill Green Lantern/Green Arrow back in the day. They are still a decent read, because after all the creators are legends, and you can imagine the smack in the head those comics must have been at the time -- but they don't hold up so well, certainly not so well as comparable Marvel titles. It seems forced, old men trying to be relevant to the young. There are always strict generational divides... but that one was happening in popular culture, in front of everyone's noses, and a lot of people didn't know how to take it... especially since most creators who weren't Adams and O'Neill didn't know how to do it. And even O'Neill was hardly perfect -- remember Emma Peel!Wonder Woman and "the incredible I-Ching"?

Anyway. A lot of the retconning has worked very well for some DC characters. Some. I think they've gone too far with the Batman titles, and I don't think they should ever have had Hal become Parallax, let alone bring back Hal or Barry Allen (who died a noble, heroic death, dammit).

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Those're absolutely exceptions. Overall I agree.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that I still haven't seen it. Or maybe I can. It's just become less important to me, certainly moreso than Cap. I mean, I thought the trailers looked really good, and I want to see it, but... no internal pressure.

And I'll tell ya this: The Marvel animated made-fors are improving -- witness Hulk Vs., Planet Hulk and, I understand, Thor: Tales of Asgard -- and some of their series, e.g., The Spectacular Spider-Man, are flat-out great. But DC's direct-to-video animated movies are consistently stunning, epic, and a few other adjectives of praise. Green Lantern: First Flight, Justice League: The New Frontier, Batman: Under The Red Hood, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Superman/Batman: Public Enemy -- that's some great shit there. The shorts for The Spectre, Superman/Shazam vs. Black Adam... I mean, yeah.

It might make sense for DC's film crew to grab Bruce Timm from the animation section. Not that I think they could, and not that I think they will.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, DC's animation has consistently been great, often MUCH better than Marvel's.

It's like they flip-flopped who made good movies vs good cartoons.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Because DC Films keeps trying to turn DC heroes into Marvel ones.

This.

[zeekar.livejournal.com]

That's partially it, but not quite right. We could definitely do without Marvelization of the DC characters. But where the recent DC movies seem to have trouble is finding the balance between realism and the source material, something that many of the Marvel movies over the past decade-plus have done an amazing job of. Some might argue that's because the Marvel characters were more realistic to start with, but I don't think that's it.

I thought the original 1978 Superman and 1989 Batman movies struck that balance pretty well, too.
But with modern DC, your options seem to be limited to a hyper-realistic Batman set in a world that bears little resemblance to the DCU, or an angsty Superman, or a . . . well, whatever was wrong with Green Lantern. The tone is either too comic-booky (GL) or not comic-booky enough (Superman). I mean, don't get me wrong, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were amazing movies, and I'm looking forward to the third, but they did not feel like comic book movies. Maybe that's good if you want Academy Awards, but it's not so good if you want to build a franchise.

Also, the editiorial decision that all of the DC movies have to stand alone rather than tie into a shared universe just makes me sad. Look at all the cross-pollination and cross-promotion Marvel gets to do with its Avengers buildup..

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, is anyone planning to watch the Captain America marathon on Sci-Fi (I know, I refuse to spell it like they do) on Thursday?