Category Archives: comic books

First ‘Iron Man 3’ photo plus ‘The Black Panther’ movie

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In the wake of “The Avengers” — and until “Iron Man 3” comes out in May 2013 — all of us comic book movie fans are going to be bouncing off the walls with every little bit of news that comes out.

So how about the bits that have come out in the past 24 hours?

Above is the first official photo from “Iron Man 3,” released by Disney and Marvel a few days after those leaked set photos of the Iron Patriot a few days ago.

Looks like RDJ as Tony Stark, surveying his ever-growing line-up of suits.

I have to say, though, I’m more excited about today’s news that it’s likely that one of the so-far-unnamed Marvel movies coming out in the next couple of years could be … “The Black Panther!”

As more than a few websites have pointed out, the Black Panther — secret identity of T’Challa, king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda — fits very easily into the Marvel movie universe that has built, over the past four years, into “The Avengers.”

There have been little Easter eggs, or at least references, to the Panther (co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for a 1966 issue of “The Fantastic Four”) in previous Marvel films. A SHIELD map of the world in “Iron Man 2” had an indicator over the approximate location in Africa of Wakanda. And the shield (of another kind) slung by “Captain America” was made of vibranium, the ultra-rare metal found only in Wakanda. The sale of vibranium is the source of Wakanda’s riches and its high-tech society.

And T’Challa has been an Avenger — including a stint during the classic Kree-Skrull War series — and would fit right into an “Avengers” sequel.

The Panther — named before the founding of the 1960s political party, he was the first black comics superhero — has had a long history in the comics and is currently appearing as a member of the group in the Disney XD “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” animated series.

Here’s hoping the rumors are true and a “Black Panther” movie gets announced, maybe even at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con.

By the way … there are some other really cool characters out there that would also fit right into an “Avengers” sequel or their own Marvel movies.

Sweet Christmas! That’s right! I’m talking about Luke Cage, none other than Power Man (AKA the Hero for Hire).

Here’s hoping.

Iron Patriot another villain for ‘Iron Man 3?’

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Here’s another one of those “how many months until this movie comes out?” posts.

The Internet was all abuzz in the past couple of days with news and speculation about “Iron Man 3,” the first post-“Avengers” Marvel movie, coming out in May 2013.

First there were reports that Ben Kingsley was indeed playing Iron Man’s best-known villain, the Mandarin, who was referenced in the earlier “Iron Man” movies.

Then today spy photos from the set made their way online and seem to show a familiar, Iron Man-style figure … wearing a very familiar red-white-and-blue color scheme.

First thought, of course, was that Tony Stark had built a suit of armor for his newfound pal Captain America.

But since the actor in the suit was revealed to be James Badge Dale, who had already been announced as a bad guy for “Iron Man 3,” speculation soon centered on the comic book character Iron Patriot.

There’s a big catch, however: In the comics, Iron Patriot was the name assumed by Norman Osborn after he absconded with some of Tony Stark’s tech. And Norman Osborn, of course, is the Green Goblin from the Spider-Man comics.

Beginning in 2009, Osborn wore the Iron Patriot suit occasionally in the comics, especially when he formed his own “Dark Avengers” boy band to battle the real Avengers.

Since Osborn is part of the “Spider-Man” movie universe and not available for use in Marvel-produced movies, we can assume that Norman Osborn is not making an appearance. That must mean that Marvel is using some Spider-Man-adjacent characters and elements — the suit, but not the guy inside it — just as they stretched the boundaries of the strict movie universe division of Marvel properties by making the alien army in “The Avengers” the Chitauri rather than the Skrulls. The Skrulls are part of the “Fantastic Four” movie universe and not open to use by Marvel in its “Avengers” universe. But the Chitauri, the modern-day version of the Skrulls, were okay for use in Joss Whedon’s movie.

Director Shane Black was expected to do some very interesting things with “Iron Man 3” even before we heard this news. That he’s continuing the expansion of the Marvel movie universe makes me look forward to the movie even more.

Just one proviso: With Mandarin and Iron Patriot and who knows who else, please, Marvel, don’t make the same mistake as the 1990s “Batman” movies and give us a ridiculous super-villain team-up with too many bad guys. Please.

Cool ‘Dark Knight’ images

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I’m still not sure how much I’m looking forward to Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” I thought the first two films in his trilogy were good if dark but I’m afraid Nolan is creating a claustrophobic world.

Maybe it’s the expansive, hero-filled world that Marvel has created, and that I enjoy so much, that makes Nolan’s self-contained Batman (and apparently Superman) films seem so inwardly focused.

Anyway, Warner Bros. has released some cool images in the past few days. Best of the bunch is the “showdown” banner above. In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s villain Bane on the right.

Here’s another good one.

They have a pretty dramatic, bleak feel to them, don’t they?

We’ll keep an eye on new images and, of course, we’ll see how everything turns out on July 20.

Who is Joseph Gordon-Levitt in ‘Dark Knight Rises?’

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He’s Robin!

He’s the Riddler!

He’s the next Batman!

Want my wild-ass guess? He’s the next Batman.

Since last year, online speculation has been steadily rumbling about who Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Surely the explanation — Gotham City police officer John Blake — is only the start of this character’s story.

But surely that can’t be the whole story?

We know that “Dark Knight Rises” touches on some of the themes from the “Knightfall” comic book series. Bad guy Bane (Tom Hardy) is there, of course, and we’ve seen indications that Bane does real physical damage to Batman/Bruce Wayne, just like in the comics. Christian Bale is seen walking with a cane in the movie.

So in the “Knightfall” comics storyline, Bane breaks Batman’s back and puts him out of commission for months. In the interim, Robin, Nightwing and other heroes fill in. A relatively new character introduced, Azrael, even assumes the identity of Batman for a while but goes over the edge before he’s stopped by the returning Bruce Wayne.

So could Gordon-Levitt be playing Azrael, or an Azrael stand-in?

What makes me think that’s likely is that Christopher Nolan has been very intent on grounding his award-winning and ticket-selling Batman movies in the “real world” So much so that Warner Bros. was reluctant to make a “Justice League” movie for fear of irritating the director.

Since “Dark Knight Rises” completes Nolan’s take on the character, Warner Bros. is likely to reboot the character in a couple of years … with someone else besides Bale playing the character.

But which character? After all, who says Batman has to be Bruce Wayne?

Why not John Blake as the avenging angel turned dark knight?

I certainly don’t have any inside info, but a buddy of mine in the business says he’s inclined to believe the same.

If Chris Nolan has outfoxed us with this mystery, my cowl’s off to him.

 

‘Walking Dead’ reveals Michonne

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If we start our “Walking Dead” countdown now, how great a fever pitch of anticipation will we reach by the time the AMC end-of-the-world series returns in October?

And yet …

Entertainment Weekly has a cool pic. Here’s Danai Gurira as Michonne, the fan favorite sword-wielding warrior woman from the “Walking Dead” comics. Michonne, played by an anonymous actor in a hooded robe, showed up in the final moments of the season finale this spring, helping Andrea, who was surrounded by walkers.

After the show aired, the producers announced they had hired Gurira to play Michonne.

I’ve only been a casual reader of the comics, but Gurira looks pretty authentic to me.

The countdown is on!

Marvel movie timeline: What happened when?

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You might have to turn the Internet on its side to fully appreciate this one, but a new book, “Avengers: The Art of Marvel’s ‘The Avengers,'” is coming out and it includes this timeline to the happenings of the Marvel cinematic universe.

I’ve always been a sucker for timelines, whether they’re demarcations of real events or, one of my favorite timelines from a couple of decades ago, a linear recounting of when events in the “Star Trek” universe took place.

Admittedly, the timeline of the Marvel movie universe is kinda thin so far. After all, we’re talking about only a handful of movies leading up to “The Avengers.”

But it’s fun to see how the chronology of the movies’ releases doesn’t always follow the chronology of how events played out in Marvel’s internal storyline.

I mean, it’s pretty cool to find out that when Bruce Banner was hulking out at Culver University in “The Incredible Hulk” in 2008, Thor was defeating the Destroyer in New Mexico on virtually the same day — and that movie came out three years later.

Cosmic, I know.

 

Pixar’s ‘Avengers’ and more

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This is just too much fun to pass up.

Above, behold: The members of “The Avengers” as Pixar characters.

Artist J.M. Walter posted this re-imagining of the Avengers on the Cartoonbrew.com Facebook page the other day and the image has been bouncing around the Interwebs ever since.

Some of the characters are easier to figure out than others. The Hulk, of course, is based on Sully from “Monsters Inc.” And since Samuel L. Jackson contributed the voice of Frozone from “The Incredibles,” why not re-imagine Jackson’s Nick Fury as Frozone?

The only one I haven’t figured out is Hawkeye. Which Pixar character is he taken from?

As an added bonus: The Avengers, known for their late-night meals, inside Edward Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks” painting. This version is by John P. Glynn.

Beautiful!

Big easter egg in ‘The Avengers?’

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Did writer/director Joss Whedon include a huge easter egg/teaser for future storylines in “The Avengers?”

That’s the theory circulating online since earlier this week, when Quint wrote a geeky, fun piece on aintitcool.com about one of the most dramatic plot points in “The Avengers” and what it might mean for the future of the movie series.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, read no further.

Okay?

The dramatic turning point in the movie comes when likable SHEILD agent Phil Coulson is killed by Loki. Coulson (Clark Gregg) is impaled on Loki’s scepter. His death gives the Avengers a rallying point — something to avenge.

SHIELD’s Nick Fury heightens the sense of loss by showing Iron Man and Captain America Coulson’s bloody Captain America trading cards. SHIELD agent Maria Hill later notes privately to Fury that Coulson’s cards couldn’t have been bloody because they were in his locker at the time of his death. Fury is a master manipulator, no doubt.

But is Whedon?

After word got out that Whedon assembled his cast following the Hollywood premiere to shoot another scene, some Internet message boards indicated it was a scene in which the Avengers would gather in Tony Stark’s lab to turn Coulson into the Vision, the classic Avengers android character created by Ultron, longtime Avengers enemy. (Of course, it was the enjoyable “Avengers assemble … to eat” scene.)

Quint expands on the “Coulson as Vision” theory by noting that the movie makes passing reference to Life Model Decoys, the robot duplicates SHIELD created in the comics, as well as noting that not once but twice in the movie reference is made to Coulson dating a cellist.

Who’s a cellist in Marvel Comics, according to Quint? Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, sometime Avenger and ultimate wife of … the Vision.

Like the earlier rumors that Spider-Man would be in “The Avengers,” this line of reasoning is just too geeky, too fun, to possibly be true.

Right?

 

After ‘Avengers’ — What we want from Marvel movies

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We’ve all seen “The Avengers” by now. Some of us have seen it twice. “Iron Man 3” comes out next year, followed by “Thor 2” and, inevitably, another “Captain America” movie and an “Avengers” sequel.

So what else do we want to see from Marvel Comics-based movies?

Carried to extremes, the fan wish list could include a Marvel Team-Up movie featuring Aunt Petunia and Aunt May. (Surely Marvel has published that comic book?)

So here are some reasonable requests:

Iron Man and the Hulk: Apparently, until just before “The Avengers” opened and moviegoers saw how much fun the Green Goliath could be in the right (Joss Whedon’s) hands, Marvel didn’t plan on making another “Hulk” movie. After two misfires (although I liked the Edward Norton movie just fine), the studio couldn’t get the Hulk right.

Well, Whedon realized that the Hulk is best when used judiciously. Mark Ruffalo was great as Bruce Banner and his mo-cap performance as the Hulk was terrific. But Hulk was a supporting character in “The Avengers.” So why not make him a supporting character in someone else’s movie? And although “Iron Man 3” is probably pretty well defined by now, surely there’s room for a couple of scenes of Banner and a couple of Hulk-outs? After all, didn’t “The Avengers” show Banner and Tony Stark leaving together, presumably so Stark could show the sympatico scientist his R&D facility?

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Leading up to “The Avengers,” there was a lot of speculation about who would play Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the loving, bickering adventurers who, as Ant-Man and the Wasp, were founding members of the Avengers in the comics. Heck, socialite Van Dyne even gave the team its name.

So the characters didn’t appear in “The Avengers.” An Ant-Man movie might be in the works, but the characters don’t appear headed for the big screen anytime soon. Which is too bad. Wasp could be a very fun female role that’s very different from Black Widow. And Pym is a natural, especially considering his multitude of sizes and identities: Giant Man,  Goliath, Yellow Jacket. This must happen!

The Vision: If you have Henry Pym, why not the Vision? Pym’s murderous robot creation, Ultron, created the Vision as a means of killing the Avengers. Turns out the Vision preferred to side with the good guys, however. Over the years, Vision, in his distinctive red-and-green-and-yellow outfit, became one of the key members of the group and fell in love with, and married, the Scarlet Witch. The Vision is like Spock and Data from “Star Trek” — only cooler, if that’s possible.

Dr. Strange: There’s been rumblings of a movie featuring Marvel’s sorcerer supreme for a while now. Since magic — or at least otherworldly science that can pass for magic — has been established in the on-screen Marvel universe, there’s no reason this mystical adventurer wouldn’t fit.

Superhero cameos, AKA rooftop encounters with Spidey: Marvel’s animated version of its super team, “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” has introduced an expanded Marvel universe that live-action movie fans can only dream of: On the Disney XD series, the Avengers regularly run into other New York-based heroes like the Fantastic Four. One episode from the first season showed the Avengers rumbling on the NYC streets with some bad guys when, out of the blue, the Human Torch and the Thing show up to help.

It’s the casual world-building that I loved about Marvel when I was a kid, the idea that all these Marvel characters shared the same universe. With the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man owed by other studios, it’ll be tough to pull off crossovers.

But we can dream, can’t we?

 

Secrets of ‘The Avengers’

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After seeing “The Avengers” for a second time, I thought I’d note a few moments from the movie that didn’t make their way into my review.

In some cases, they might be elements from the movie that blew right past the general audience.

And there’ll be a spoiler alert before the very end, if you still haven’t seen the movie — and contributed to the record-breaking $200 million opening weekend take.

Loki did it: Thor’s brother, Loki, is a troublemaker, a trickster god of the first order. He’s the force that sets the plot of Joss Whedon’s movie in motion by materializing on Earth and stealing the Cosmic Cube. Later, Black Widow, using unconventional interrogation techniques, determines that Loki is trying to get to the Avengers through the Hulk.

That’s perfectly appropriate, because in the first issue of the Avengers comic, released in September 1963, Loki uses tricks and illusions to get superheroes Iron Man, Ant Man and Wasp to go after Hulk. Thor shows up and, after some typical Marvel hero in-fighting, the team is formed. And stays together until the next issue.

Life Model Decoys: When SHIELD agent Phil Coulson calls Tony Stark early in the movie, Stark answers and says he’s not the real Tony Stark, he’s a Life Model Decoy. The geekiest among us know that Life Model Decoys were a creation of SHIELD early in the organization’s Marvel Comics history. In Strange Tales comic in 1965, SHIELD deploys LMDs — perfect copies of agents including Nick Fury — as … well, decoys.

“Puny god:” In one of the funniest moments in “The Avengers,” Hulk thoroughly wallops Loki. The audience is still laughing as Hulk walks away, muttering to himself. (Yes, the Hulk spoke in “The Incredible Hulk” and speaks again here.) What does Hulk say after giving Loki a (literal) smackdown? “Puny god!” It’s a play on Hulk’s patented “Puny humans!” declaration.

The Chitauri: After months of speculation about Loki’s alien army in “The Avengers,” it’s mentioned in the first moments of the movie, during voice-over narration, that the alien warriors are the Chitauri. Who? The Chitauri are, in the Ultimate Marvel comic book universe, the contemporary equivalent of the Skrulls. Apparently the Skrulls are considered part of the “Fantastic Four” movie universe and were not available for Whedon’s use here. Clever writer that he is, he got around that by using the Chitauri.

Stark Tower/Avengers Tower/Avengers Mansion: One thing the movie does, as did many Marvel comics over the past 50 years, is thoroughly establish a setting in New York City. As a kid who didn’t know he would ever visit the Big Apple — still haven’t, actually — I soaked up everything I could about New York from hundreds of Marvel Comics set there.

Second only to the Baxter Building — home of the Fantastic Four — on Marvel’s Landmarks of New York Tour is Avengers Mansion. Originally belonging to Tony Stark, the mansion is loaned to the Avengers for use as their home base. Jarvis, Tony’s butler, even becomes the butler for the Avengers.

In the movie, Stark is building a NYC skyscraper emblazoned with his name. During the battle with Loki and the Chitauri, most of the STARK lettering gets knocked off, leaving only a bold “A.” We notice this at the end of the movie and can assume that, for the inevitable sequel, the Avengers will hang out here.

Here’s the big “Avengers” movie secret. Once again, if you haven’t seen the movie, spoiler alert in …

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Thanos: Partway through the end credits, the mysterious alien who had been talking to Loki is seen, on a crumbling asteroid in space, talking to a creature seated on a throne.

To go to Earth and take on the Avengers would be to “court death,” the alien says.

The massive figure stands up from the throne, turns his head and smiles.

It is Thanos, the Marvel Comics alien introduced in Iron Man comics in 1973. Thanos, created by writer/artist Jim Starlin, is based on Thanatos, the god of death from Greek mythology. In the comics, Thanos is to some extent Marvel’s counterpart to DC’s Darkseid, an extremely powerful and dangerous alien creature who has crossed over from comic to comic, posing a threat to many of the heroes of the Marvel Universe.

Whedon is a comic book fan (and writer) and, by including Thanos in “The Avengers,” sparked shivers down the spines of fans everywhere. If Thanos shows up in an “Avengers” sequel, the threat he poses will be far greater than that posed by Loki.

Just sayin’.