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Let Marvel Have the Movies I don't think I am going out a major limb by saying that Marvel pretty much has the comic book movie thing wrapped up. The success of the three Iron Man movies, two Thor movies, a Captain America Movie (with another coming this month) and The Avengers movie and more in the pipeline over the next two years; Marvel has the market cornered; which is all well and good because they even sucked me into watching a Robert Downey Jr movie after I told myself that I would never watch one of his movies because he was a drunken lout. But once I saw how he played Tony Stark in the trailer of the first Iron Man movie I told myself, "Okay maybe he has cleaned up his act." DC Comics on the other hand seems to have carved itself a rather nice niche in the television realm. Back in the 2000's Smallville had a nine season run that pretty much showed that DC could handle making a weekly television show. Even though the actors that they hired to be Clark and Lana are about as cardboard as they come in terms of actors. The supporting cast carried the show and with season long story arcs they sucked watchers in week after week. This led to the CW's Arrow which is doing well ratings wise even though it is a CW show. A Flash spinoff from Arrow is in the works so DC Comics has the lock on their comic books in the television realm. DC has not had a lot of winners in the movies as of late. Jonah Hex (not even Megan Fox could get men to see it), Green Lantern (not even Ryan Reynolds could get women to see it) and the Superman Reboots have met with somewhat mixed reaction. The only exception to this is Christopher Nolan's Batman the Dark Knight trilogy, but one good trilogy that was hyped to death (literally and figuratively) does not the base for a good series of movies in The Avengers vein make.
Video Game Fanboys/Girls: Why you mad? This link to a YouTube Video on the PBS Game/Show is a nine minute plus treatise on why fans of video games are so mad about things in video games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9YozVtUag It mostly focuses on why companies make more sequels and less new stuff. He also focuses on the fact that people basically get up in arms because of what a video game really is versus what a fan thinks a video game should be. I think Aliens Colonial Marines for the 360/PS3 is the perfect example of that. The fans of the game were all drooling over the graphics in a cut scene thinking it was actual game play footage versus just being something used to drive the plot along. I have yet to play A:CM (I do own it for the 360), but I have to sit down and see how bad things really are with it. I think some of the fans that are up in arms were not children of the early years of video gaming/console gaming. We had games like Pac-Man, Gyruss, Galaga and so forth that did not end. So there was pretty much nothing to get up in arms about. Now we have the next generation come along that are obsessed with cut scenes and things that have to be super realistic. Guess what fans? If you want super realistic in your life, go see a movie.
Rocket Raccoon Retrospective With the Guardians of the Galaxy movie coming out this summer, the web site Comic Book Resources decided to do an article about the character Rocket Raccoon in comics throughout the years. Here's a link to it in case you have not read it yet. I can only say that my only encounters with Mister Raccoon was through Dragon Magazine from the late 1980's or early 1990's that usually had stats for some obscure Marvel Comics character for the Marvel Super Heroes RPG by TSR. There was also the time I got his miniature from a booster of HeroClix. He was really neat looking with his then Guardians of the Galaxy costume. He also fit into a team that I was building that had the Animal Keyword. Reading the CBR article I had no idea that the history of the character Rocket Raccoon went back into the 1970's. It seems like most of the characters that I like in Marvel (Rocket Raccoon, Howard the Duck, Man-Thing and Hawkeye) can trace their first appearances back to the late 1960's or early 1970's. Rear the article and get excited for Guardians of the Galaxy coming in the summer.
Something that just clicked Thinking back and doing research on Rocket Raccoon it seems that back in the 1970's Marvel was willing to give new characters a chance with their own series. Power Man (or as he's known now Luke Cage) started that way as did Howard the Duck, Man-Thing and many other characters that would never have a shot at getting their own series now. That is sad because they drag their feet on getting trades out from the 1970's that comic book fans and people in general should read. Howard the Duck is a good example of this because although they use pop culture icons like the band KISS in an issue or two the writer, Steve Gerber, was adept at showing readers hey here's what's going on. Too bad Marvel only put out one Essential trade of Howard the Duck and I have no idea what is happening to get the last of the issues out for a second volume Essential Collection. DC is kind of doing now with New 52 what Marvel did back in the 1970's, in that they give a title about a six issue run before deciding to cancel it or let it continue. It is kind of a two edged sword in that fans get to see a title they might enjoy in print, but if not enough fans buy it then that six issue run is it.
One Final Thing At the beginning of this year, I told myself that I would try to put more book reading into my diet and less internet and comics reading. I know I write for a magazine that delves into things that are considered nerdy, but I need to spread my wings and read something other than those things. So far since the beginning of April 2014 I have read five good sized books. I'm headed full steam into six and am looking for number seven as well. I know in this day and age that it is easy to get sucked into watching or reading stuff on the internet, but taking the time to stop and dedicate yourself to reading an actual book for fun you'll probably find something that you never thought about until you picked up that book and read it cover to cover. That's all for this month folks, April will have a lot going on since the major convention season starts then as well as the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a prelude to summer movie season.
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