Category Archives: Marvel comics movies

Captain America on the Fourth of July

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cap uncle sam

It’s pretty easy to draw a line between Captain America, the classic Marvel Comics character, and the Fourth of July, the U.S.’ most patriotic holiday.

The guy’s dressed in the Stars and Stripes, for pete’s sake.

But those who dismiss Cap and his alter ego, Steve Rogers, as an empty American symbol are wrong.

cap poster

As a matter of fact, Cap’s real patriotism is what the Marvel movie producers got so right in “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “The Avengers.”

avengers 4 cap returns

Like Superman, Captain America is a man without his own people. When Cap returned in Avengers No. 4, he was nearly 20 years removed from his era and his battleground, World War II. That “man out of time” feeling, which directors Joe Johnson and Joss Whedon captured so well in those movies, is what sets Cap apart from hip, funny heroes like Spider-Man.

cap superhero squad

Heck, the former Cartoon Network series “Superhero Squad,” which made Marvel heroes appealing and accessible to young fans, even got Cap right even as they poked fun at him. Cap in that series was always talking about some conversation he had with FDR or making some other “frozen in amber” reference. It was as funny as it was on-the-nose.

But besides Cap’s stranger in a strange land status, he’s also known for doing what’s right. Always. For a period in his comic in the 1970s, that meant forgoing the Cap name and costume and, thanks to disillusionment with the government, operating as Nomad, the man without a country.

I’m looking forward to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” next year in great part because it looks like more of a political thriller than a spandex slugfest and in great part because it looks to pit Cap against SHIELD. Cap’s character in “The Avengers” certainly showed more than a little skepticism about SHIELD and Nick Fury’s motives. That’s perfectly in keeping with the character and I couldn’t be happier about that.

So while Steve Rogers would, if he existed, be enjoying a hot dog and some fireworks today, he’d also be mindful of what enabled him to enjoy the Fourth of July, the sacrifices of men and women that allowed that and the individual liberties of the people around him.

Because while Captain America might have been a man without his own people, he has embraced – and been embraced by – his new people.

Save the dates: More Marvel movies

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dr strange

The least surprising news out of Hollywood this week: More Marvel Comics movies are on the horizon.

Marvel announced a still-unspecified movie would debut in theaters on July 8, 2016.

That’s in addition to Marvel movies – also unspecified – set for May 6, 2016, and May 5, 2017 that were announced in recent weeks.

Those are all in the wake of previously-announced – and specified – Marvel movies for 2015, namely the sequel to “The Avengers” and “Ant-Man.”

We’ll know – maybe as early as next month’s San Diego Comic Con – details of those 2016 and 2017 movies. Last year, for example, Comic Con audiences were the first to hear the full titles for upcoming Marvel movies like “Thor: The Dark World” (out this November) and 2014 titles like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

So we’ll know before long if those upcoming movies will be sequels featuring Thor and Cap or new movies featuring the likes of “Dr. Strange” and “Black Panther.”

Some online reports this week indicated that “Dr. Strange” – the movie and character – would be a running thread through future Marvel movies not unlike the way Iron Man has been in the first set of movies.

It would be an interesting choice, considering that Stephen Strange, surgeon turned master of the mystic arts, is a more fantasy-oriented character than any we’ve seen so far (with the possible exception of Thor) and making him a central character like Iron Man is an indication that Marvel is edging further “out there” in its films. It would also, if cast correctly, be a character that could equal Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in the hearts of moviegoers – a good move since Downey is only so far signed to appear in the two “Avengers” sequels.

Here’s looking forward to some new news.

Magneto on the job in ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

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michael fassbender days future past

Michael Fassbender’s Magneto was one of the best things about “X-Men: First Class.” A few people opined online that they’d pay to watch him hunt Nazis for an entire movie.

So a little Fassbender is nothing but a good thing in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

Director Bryan Singer is tweeting pictures of the cast and from the set, and today he released the Fassbender.

The movie comes out in July 2014.

The movie revisionists: Everything you know is wrong

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man of steel big

Think you know the story of Superman?

Well, maybe not.

When “Man of Steel” comes out June 14,  director Zack Snyder might have a few surprises even for longtime fans of the man of … er, steel.

Most of us don’t know what to expect from “Man of Steel” yet, but it’s certain that a few elements of the Superman mythos will be tweaked at the very least.

That’s not surprising, because most filmmakers like to bring something new to their versions of familiar stories. That’s why “The Amazing Spider-Man” retold the origin of the webslinger only about a decade after we saw it before and tried to infuse new elements – chiefly a mystery about Peter’s parents – into it.

It’s not just superhero stories that get revamped. When director John Carpenter made “The Thing” in 1982, he made the “walking alien carrot” much less of the traditional monster familiar from 1951’s “The Thing from Another World.” the first adaptation of John Campbell’s story. Carpenter made the alien menace a much more paranoia-inducing shapeshifter.

By the way, spoilers ahead for some current movies if you haven’t seen them.

Some fans of the “Iron Man” comics were irritated when this summer’s “Iron Man 3” made huge changes to the character of the Mandarin, the longtime antagonist of Tony Stark.

iron man mandarin comics

The Mandarin went from an Asian menace armed with magic rings …

mandarin iron man 3

To a figurehead, a stalking horse played by a down-at-the-heels British actor.

Sometimes it’s more than changing characters. Sometimes it’s all about changing the background of sets of characters.

khan

The classic 1982 “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” was a sequel to an episode of the original series and emphasized the bad blood and shared history of Khan, the genetically superior warrior, and Jim Kirk.

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In this summer’s “Star Trek Into Darkness,” however, there was no history between Kirk and Khan. And I think the movie suffered for that.

With “Man of Steel,” the rumors have been flying about changes Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan might have made.

Does Superman’s Kryptonian birth father, Jor-El, live? Or are the clips of Russell Crowe talking to Henry Cavill just indicative of an amazingly lifelike hologram?

Is Zod (Michael Shannon) sprung from the Phantom Zone or does he arrive in a space ship? Sure looks like a Kryptonian ship in the background to me.

We won’t know the answers for a few days. But we can already guess about fairly interesting cosmetic changes to two longtime characters from the “Superman” stories.

perry white and jimmy olsen

Daily Planet editor Perry White and cub reporter/photographer Jimmy Olsen have been staples of the comics for a half-century.

jenny olsen rebecca buller laurence fishburne

Snyder, interestingly, cast Laurence Fishburne, an African-American actor, to play White, who has traditionally been, well, white. I love Fishburne and I think this is a big win.

But it’s less clear who’s playing Jimmy Olsen in the movie. In fact, it’s becoming more clear that Jimmy Olsen isn’t in the movie. Actress Rebecca Buller seems to be playing Jenny Olsen.

Jimmy_Olsen

Traditional Jimmy.

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New Jenny.

I can live with that.

‘Avengers 2’ update: Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch planned

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The_Avengers_2_quicksilver scarlet witch

So this is happening.

Joss Whedon, after having referred to wanting to add a “brother-sister” team to the mix in “The Avengers 2” or whatever the sequel will be called when it’s released in 2015, confirmed this week he was talking about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, early Avengers members, children of Magneto of “X-Men” fame.

Quicksilver, or Pietro Maximoff, is Marvel’s fastest mutant. Scarlet Witch, or Wanda Maximoff, has powers that appear magical. They’ve been villains at times but heroes more often than not.

If you remember way back in May 2012, I wrote about the online guessing game that began after Whedon wrote several mentions of SHIELD agent Phil Coulson’s cellist girlfriend into “The Avengers.”

Quint and other folks speculated that the reference was to Scarlet Witch because the character – and this is a point of contention – supposedly had some background as a cellist in the comics.

Why would that be interesting?

vision and scarlet witch

Well, because Coulson was killed off and we all hoped he would come back as the Vision, the android Avenger. Cause Vision and Wanda were a longtime couple in the comics.

Of course now Coulson’s come back, somehow, for this fall’s “Agents of SHIELD” TV series. So now we don’t know what to think.

Anyway, if the cellist references and Vision hints didn’t pan out, at least we have Whedon saying outright he plans to bring the two into the mix.

saoirse-ronan scarlet witch

Of course, they’re also talking about Saoirse Ronan as Wanda in the movie, and there’s just way too big an age difference between the young actress and Coulson actor Clark Gregg.

Even in Hollywood.

Oh, Vision.

 

‘Agents of SHIELD’ – What we want to see

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marvels-agents-of-shield-cast

Okay, so we all know by now that “Agents of SHIELD” will bow on ABC this fall, 8 p.m. Tuesdays. The Marvel/Disney movie is set in the post-“Avengers” universe and features the still-unexplained return of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), who’s recruiting a team of young agents to search for superheroes and unexplained phenomena. Along the way they meet up with a character who might be Luke Cage or might be someone else, played by J. August Richards.

So what do we want – no, need – to see in a “SHIELD” series?

SHIELD agents making contact with superheroes. Since this is the premise of the series, this isn’t much of a stretch. A lot of online joking has spoofed the idea of trying to do “Avengers” action on a TV budget and without big stars, leading to moments where Tony Stark or Bruce Banner just stepped out. But we want to see SHIELD agents meeting and dealing with superheroes. If they’re familiar characters from the comics who we haven’t met on-screen yet, that’s fine.

Lots of inside references. There’s a half-century of Marvel Comics and SHIELD storylines and characters out there and we need to see a lot of nods toward them. If “Arrow” can make reference to Blue Beetle without even knowing if the character will ever show up or set scenes in Bludhaven, Nightwing’s stomping ground, without having the rights to the “Batman” characters, then we can see plenty of Marvel characters introduced and references, by golly.

Fantastic Four 67 HIM

Seeds sewn for future Marvel movies. Why not introduce plot lines and characters planned for “Ant-Man” or even “Avengers 2?” Marvel Comics have, for the aforementioned 5o years, tossed characters and conflicts and stories into the mix to introduce them before they became familiar characters and plots later. Remember how the character later familiar as Warlock was introduced as “Him” in Fantastic Four?

Cameos for the big names. Yes, they could give us CGI recreations of Iron Man and the Hulk in “SHIELD.” But wouldn’t it be fun to see Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Ruffalo show up during sweeps weeks?

AIM and Modok

We want AIM and HYDRA. The uber-criminal organizations, introduced in “Iron Man 3” and “Captain America” respectively, are the traditional counterparts to SHIELD in the comics. They should be a background – and sometimes foreground – presence in the TV series. And what about AIM’s big-domed leader, MODOK?

strange tales 135 life model decoy

Life Model Decoys! Tony Stark joked about them in “The Avengers.” They’ve been a SHIELD staple since the 1960s. These robotic doubles for our main characters are kind of cheesy, but it would be a fun acknowledgment of the show’s roots.

I’m sure there are other “must see” characters and plots out there, right?

Even more ‘SHIELD’ trailer!

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coulson-lives

First we had a six-second Vine trailer for ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD.” Then we had a 30-second trailer. Now we have a full two and half minutes of promo for the series – or at least the pilot, directed by “Avengers” director and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon.

And there’s so much fun stuff in it.

Observations:

The trailer addresses, head-on, the idea that Agent Phil Coulson (series start Clark Gregg) was supposed to have been killed in “The Avengers.” It’ll be interesting to see how that story plays out. Will they tease us with what happened? Or very quickly attribute it to a Nick Fury scheme to motivate Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Thor Odinson?

That’s definitely the voice of Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill from “The Avengers”) in the trailer, asking the young agent what SHIELD means to him. Interesting to see if Smulders will play a recurring role in the show.

SHIELD j august richards

I’m so hoping that J. August Richards is playing Luke Cage. Richards is more wiry and wry than Cage, but I really want to see this charismatic actor bring that classic character to life. And what do you want to bet Whedon will have him exclaim “Sweet Christmas,” Cage’s trademark exclamation?

SHIELD trailer van scene

There’s plenty of Joss Whedon-type humor here. Whedon was a master of playing against expectations and we see that here, especially the scene where (at least initially) anti-SHIELD investigator/hacker Skye (Chloe Bennett) is boasting that her message can’t be stopped … until Coulson and company roll open the door of her van. There’s another when Skye is being interrogated and is told it can go two ways. “Is one the easy way?” “No,” she is told. “Oh.”

We get some glimpses of the heroes of “The Avengers,” but the trailer really emphasizes the normal-ness of most of its main characters, noting, “Not all heroes … are super.”

SHIELD_Ming Na Wen

That being said, Whedon likes tough chicks. Here we see Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May kicking butt, just like Buffy or the Black Widow.

We see not only Richards’ character in the trailer but indications that SHIELD is keeping track of a burgeoning superhero population around the world. That makes sense considering that the post-credits scene of 2008’s “Iron Man” – the scene that started this all – indicated that Nick Fury showed up when Tony Stark went public.

In a way, the street-level, non-superhero perspective reminds me of “Marvels,” the classic 1994 Marvel comic series that redrew the landmark events of Marvel in the 1960s from the eye of the common man.

For a weekly series, that’s a smart move. Viewers will like knowing there’s a perspective similar to their own, boggling over the Marvels that are popping up around the globe.

 

‘Agents of SHIELD’ trailer released

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coulson SHIELD teaser

It’s Mother’s Day, but darned if it doesn’t look like the day has turned into “Agents of SHIELD” Day.

Today ABC and Marvel released not only a six-second preview of Joss Whedon’s new fall “SHIELD” series but also a 30-second version that not only gives us glimpses of the Hulk, Captain America and Thor but also some narration from SHIELD agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) that explains the set-up.

“We work the cases that SHIELD hasn’t classified,” Coulson notes as the trailer opens. “The strange, the unknown. It’s not just spy versus spy anymore. The whole world’s in on the action.”

j august richards SHIELD trailer

And it gives us our first look at “Angel” alum J. August Richards in a role that a lot of us are hoping is Luke Cage.

I’m also curious about the nature of the fiery figure (vision? explosion?) that Coulson calmly walks toward at one point. We can  be sure it’s not the Human Torch, right?

luke cage in SHIELD teaser

We’ll know more soon, we hope.

 

First look: Paul Giamatti as the Rhino

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rhino spider-man giamatti

Hmm. Well, it’s interesting.

When director Marc Webb cast character actor Paul Giamatti as veteran Spider-Man villain the Rhino in his “Amazing Spider-Man” sequel, some of us wondered. Giamatti just didn’t seem to fit the part.

Now we have the picture above, tweeted by Webb, of Giamatti from production of the movie, which comes out in summer 2014.

rhino spider-man 41

It’s a different look, for sure.

Maybe he doesn’t have his Rhino onesie and horn yet. As various websites have noted today, he definitely has the roid rage look, though.

 

‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ is on for TV and here’s a peek

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agents of SHIELD cast

We knew this was going to happen – “Avengers” director Joss Whedon is overseeing the series and directed the pilot episode, for pete’s sake – but ABC on Friday announced that it had picked up the “SHIELD” series.

So we got a couple of cool things on Friday, coolest of which is the cast photo above, with SHIELD agents flanking Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg).

There was also a “leak” of a few seconds of footage labeled “Hulk Fire.” It looks like footage from “The Incredible Hulk” to me, a few seconds of the Abomination tearing up Harlem before the Hulk shows up. But maybe I’m wrong.

SHIELD leaked image

Here’s a screen cap.

The show – which will exist in the Marvel movie universe – has the potential to be cool, Whedon-y fun like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefly.”

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It’ll be interesting to see how the series explains some things – the presence of Coulson, who was ostensibly killed in “The Avengers” – and how it gives us some superhero action without busting its budget.

j august richards

Not to mention the possibility of cameos, and the mystery of who “Angel” alum J. August Richards is playing. Is he Luke Cage? And how many other Marvel characters will be introduced in the series?

Here’s ABC’s description of the series:

“Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet). From Executive Producers Joss Whedon (“Marvel’s The Avengers,” ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”); Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” pilot co-writers (“Dollhouse,” “Dr.Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”); Jeffrey Bell (“Angel,” “Alias”); and Jeph Loeb (“Smallville”) comes Marvel’s first TV series.  “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.”