I tried to reply to someone's blog about superhero movies, but an error occurred and it won't take it. Brock Heasley and SuperFogeys webcomic plans on sitting through a 14 hour movie marathon which counts down to The Avengers in theaters. Anyway, I'm irritated that I wasted the better part of an hour rambling on and on when I had better things to do, so I'd like to present my thoughts on the past decade's DC and Marvel superhero movies here. Hope you all enjoy!


Nah, you might not be the only one to totally dig Thor. I come close to your opinion, but maybe not quite. I think the original three Spiderman flicks - with varying amount of grievances for some of the third's content and direction - have been the best Marvel movies I've seen. But, past that, Thor was amazing and Captain America was, to me, probably the best post-Spiderman 3 flicks. Whereas I thought Iron Man was an okay but disappointing sub-par movie and that Iron Man 2 was even worse. I never saw the earlier Hulk movie, the one with the mutated dogs, but did see the second one with Fury and Iron Man at the end of it, and didn't think it was too bad, but sadly must not have left a big impression on me as it is not very remember-able to me years later. I am half-hearted - actually, more like 75% hearted against - toward the upcoming new Spiderman film, but mostly only because I don't think the actor looks like a Peter Parker, I hate the costume that diverges from the classic, I've heard there's a bigger emphasis on Gwen Stacy and Peter still in high school which is foreign to my tastes, and I honestly see absolutely no reason to discontinue the older film series in favor of a newer series, especially one that is billed as a "darker take on Spiderman." I understand that the director and actors of the previous film franchise have, if you will, flown the coop with no intentions on returning to ever make another Spiderman film, but I don't think it impossible to replace the actors and director and place a fourth movie years later in order to explain aging as the reason the actors may look somewhat different. Still, because of that, I concede that a reboot may be less of a headache. My positives for the new Spiderman film are as thus: 1) The Lizard is the villain, 2) web-cartridges are back, which is interesting but I have no bias towards or against, 3) Peter's parents disappearance is actually brought up which may be an interesting plot point, and 4) there is an absolutely good chance that this Spiderman may crossover with the newly formed Avengers movie series, if we're lucky. Speaking of which, I've been enjoying the X-Men franchise of movies quite much as well. Somehow I put them into a different bracket as I do the other Marvel superheroes for some reason. My favorite has been X-Men Origins: Wolverine (I wait with abated breath for X-Men Origins: Wolverine part 2 and Deadpool's movie, lol), with X-Men: First Class coming in second, but somehow didn't enjoy the original three X-Men movies as much. I mostly enjoy them because of the character of Wolverine and the actor playing him. I very much chuckled at his cameo in X-Men: First Class at the bar. I am hoping for Wolverine to possibly grace the Avengers movie franchise at some point in time as well. I want, more than that however, for the movies to be well-written and well-made more so than a huge cast of characters. After all, the last thing we need is a big-screen example of the failure of our epic-earth-shattering-Crisis-On-Infinite-Comic-Series where in which every superhero known to man overwhelms us and there is so much action and not any real story or plot or dialogue going on that everything becomes nonsensical, confusing, and ultimately irritating, unenjoyable, and an obvious sales gimmick to get myriads of busloads of hungry fans to buy more books just because one of their favorite characters might meet and interact with a gagillion other characters they might like too, all while saving earth or reality itself from complete erasure or some other mind-boggling epic dilemma that is blown up completely out-of-proportion. But, moving on, when done the right way - the well-written, balanced, and toned down (less constant epicness) way - a mega-cross over (or, better yet, a smaller cross over) can be and is a real treat! I'm honestly very much looking forward to The Avengers, to give an example, and hoping for the possibility of a Superman/Batman movie at some time that may lead to a Justice League movie (of which most likely neither will ever happen at all, I'm afraid). For now, I'd settle for a Wonder Woman movie that his heavily saturated with ancient Greek mythology and culture (I like authenticity and historical period movies). Speaking of which, what's up with Superman's new costume in Man of Steel? Seriously. But looking forward to seeing that, I suppose, although I'm not sold yet or dying to run out to the theater on opening day. Batman's third is intriguing me mostly due to Catwoman and the fact that I have no idea what direction the franchise will take for the third installment, and especially since it is the concluding movie.

I had completely forgotten about Marvel's Fantastic Four movies, Dare Devil, Ghost Rider (as well as Elektra and Punisher which I never saw), and any I have not listed (I must not know they exist). This is mostly due to the fact that absolutely none of them made a good impression on me whatsoever - except Fantastic Four, I admit, as I have always loved Ben Grimm and his desire to become "normal" again (him being Jewish and reminding me of the Jewish Golem myth is an interesting plus). I thought that the first FF movie was fairly great, although not much happened; but ultimately it's true that it set up the origin for the movie franchise (may it rest in peace as I've heard no news of a third film) and we are still awaiting to see Dr. Doom at his greatest. But the the second one disappointed me as having too many jokes and puns. I felt like the plot was almost non-existent, as if what little plot it did have was strung together by too much comedy and action, and not enough smart dialogue and etc. I suppose I'm taking my superhero movies too seriously, though.

Oh, Superman Returns fit PERFECTLY with the other much earlier Superman franchise. The movie itself was astoundingly good and well-scripted. Although it's too bad we didn't see Doomsday take him out instead of a giant piece of green rock (and a dagger), and I admit that Superman having a son just feels weird to me, I love this movie.

I plan on seeing the next Green Lantern movie. I thought it was fairly good, but hoping the second will be even better. Anyway, I guess I just felt like typing up a message about my own love for the genre. I get really carried away sometimes. It's scary. I originally didn't mean to ramble endlessly as I did.

Good luck, Brock, with your movie marathon! I would never do that. I can't sit still for 14 hours straight. I don't even like sitting through a 3 hour movie if I can help it, ha ha.