Upcoming Marvel Comics movies

If (like me) you knew well enough to stay in the cinema after the Iron Man credits finished, you will know that this is just the beginning for Marvel Studios. Now that they have wrested the keys of control from the hands of large corporations and movie studios, they are free to do as they will… and make their own mistakes? Perhaps.

But the promise of an Avengers movie lies nested in the deep planning of other films. As big wig Avi Arad has stated, Marvel Studios had no interest in simply plopping an Avengers film featuring complete strangers at the feet of a confused movie going public. Instead, the plan is to fully introduce the key characters in the super hero super group before plunging them headlong into an ensemble flick.

That said, it looks like this (thanks to Pardis Parker for the time table)

Iron Man 2 (Marvel) Scheduled for April 30, 2010 release
Thor (Marvel) Scheduled for June 4, 2010 release
The First Avenger: Captain America working title (Marvel) Scheduled for May 6, 2011 release
The Avengers (Marvel) Scheduled for July 2011 release
Ant-Man (Marvel) Writer/director engaged

So we have three long years to wait for a pay off for a post end credit sequence? It’s not that I mind, but… is it going to be worth it? If the films listed above (including next month’s dark horse Incredible Hulk) are as good as Favreau’s Iron Man, I’m in.

But any comic book fan can tell you that nothing is set in stone and the fickle winds of change are only months apart sometimes. Three years could mean anything for the Avengers.

All I know is that the day after I saw the Iron Man movie I saw my cousin-in-law’s children Seth and Ilan and they were ravenous for anything Avengers-related… how weird is that!?

Geoff Johns interview

There’s a great 2-part interview with Geoff Johns over at comicbookresources.com.

Geoff is one of ‘those writers’ that you either love or hate. He came to DC Comics and reworked the Flash and the JSA (with Blade’s screenwriter David Goyer) at a key moment in the company’s history when super hero comics were finally coming back into their own. Grant Morrison had made both the hipster ‘I hate comics but love the Invisibles‘ crowd and the classic comic loving ‘I love Superman but not what DC has done to him’ group happy with his JLA series and created a demand for good super hero comics.Johns made those comics.

After JSA, he took on the gnarled knot of half-thought-out ideas that was Hawkman, revived Teen Titans and then did the impossible, he made Green Lantern a best-selling series for DC for probably the first time since the 1960’s. Some dislike the hard-edged world that Johns has helped to create, a world of violence and insanity that culminated in the mega-event Infinite Crisis, but it’s here to stay.

In addition, Johns has helped to create a kind of community of writers including Morrison,  Greg Rucka and Mark Waid that has helped invite readers into a universe of interlocking stories rather than stand alone creations. The follow-up to Infinite Crisis, 52, remains one of the most successful comics ever created and to date the only successful weekly comic project (I’m looking at you, Countdown!).

Currently he’s working on reviving the ailing house of Superman which is good news. For years, there has been a revolving door of great creative teams on both Action Comics and Superman that has made readers exhausted and impatient for DC to get their act together. In the interview, Johns hints that their wait will be worth while.

The current storyline re-introducing the Legion of Super Heroes with star artist Gary Frank (of Supreme Power) is working up to be an explosive tale that could change the status quot for the Man of Steel.

There’s also a statement in the interview that makes this fan gleeful with hope, that he’d like to write one of the Avengers titles along with Bendis. For anyone who read his incredible run on the title back in the day, this could not be a better idea.

Please, comic book fairies,  hear my wish!

Avengers Assemble?

Apparently director and sometime actor John Favreau is anxious to take on more Marvel Comics properties.

Before his Iron Man film has even be released Favreau has expressed an interest in tackling a feature film version of the Marvel Comics super group, The Avengers.

There have been some rumors that there is a plan to link The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man films coming out this summer with an appearance by Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. The rumor goes on that Fury is on a mission to assemble a team called the Avengers.

For those not in the know, The Avengers is the answer to the Distinguished Competition’s Justice League of America. Originally featuring Iron Man, the Hulk, Giant Man (who is sometimes Ant Man), The Wasp and the Mighty Thor, the team really took off when Captain America was discovered frozen in a block of ice from a battle in the 1940’s.

The big wait is for the individual films featuring these super heroes to be released because Marvel has stated they will do an Avengers film under two conditions; that each character gets established in his own film and that the actor portraying each character is in the Avengers film.

If those demands aren’t met, no Avengers movie.

This is quite different from the upcoming JLA film which will feature new actors as Superman and Batman as well as new feature film appearances by Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Flash. It may seem like a long road to go down, but I think Marvel has the right idea.

Recommended

Essential Avengers, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)
Avengers West Coast: Darker Than Scarlet TPB (Avengers West Coast)
Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1

Next Avengers Animated film

The fifth animated film project from Marvel Studios is a breaking new ground rather than redefining existing storylines. The first two films, Ultimate Avengers I and II, were awkwardly based both on classic and ‘Ultimate’ versions of the Avengers while attempting to develop a kind of synergy between the two. The follow ups, Iron Man and Doctor Strange, are more character-centric big budget films.

In a recent interview with iF Magazine, Senior Vice President of Creative Development Animation Craig Kyle had the following to say:

“I would definitely look at it as an extension of those films. We’ve done two of them, so if you look at it that way, this would be ULTIMATE AVENGERS 22. The story is well down the line and it would be after the AVENGERS had many journey’s and faced many foes. They’ve really come to a point in their lives, at this stage, where there a lot of other younger heroes in their world, and they’re thinking “before we lose our lives in battle or die of old age, we should settle down and enjoy a slice of it ourselves.” Not that they stopped their heroics, but they would have settled down to some degree and focused on having families, and unfortunately one of the greatest threats they ever faced was Ultron. The history of this coming film, in the final time they faced him, he defeated them — all of them. And before he could cut his way through these heroes and to their offspring, they were whisked away and hidden from them and had been living in a protective bubble, unknowing of what happened to their parents and how they are and the fate that awaits them in the outside world. What you get is an environment, where Ultron has been in control of the world for over a decade and has been rebuilding it in his image and he does find those children to finish what he started over 15-years ago.”

The ‘Next Avengers’ film takes place far in the future and while the visual above and concept sound kid-centric, one of the chief influences cited by the production team is the dark vision of the Marvel Comics future Earth X. Protected by their patriarch and teacher Tony Stark, the young Avengers are eager to prove themselves in battle against the insanely powerful villain Ultron. Taking place in a future where the classic Avengers are aged phantoms of themselves, these young Avengers view themselves as the only hope in striking back against the evil robot conqueror.

The short trailer included on the Doctor Strange animated DVD seems to indicate that despite the fact that the heroes are kids, the film will take risks at telling a darker story than the audience will be expecting.

The next two animated projects are rumored to be The Mighty Thor and Hulk Smash, but Next Avengers may be the first attempt at developing an original film.

The Avengers Movie

Marvel Comics recently announced its upcoming projects for the coming years, which is well worth a glance:

Feature Film Projects Being Developed by Marvel – partial list
Iron Man, Marvel - Completed principal photography; May 2, 2008 release
The Incredible Hulk, Marvel - Commenced principal photography; June 13, 2008 release
Ant-Man, Marvel - Writer and director engaged
Captain America, Marvel - Writer engaged
Thor, Marvel - Writer engaged
The Avengers, Marvel - Writer engaged

Licensed Marvel Character Feature Film Line-Up
Punisher 2, Lionsgate - Commenced principal photography, slated for 2008 release
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fox - Director engaged, slated for May 1, 2009 release

Marvel Character Animated TV Projects
Fantastic Four, Moonscoop SAS (France) - 26, 30-minute episodes; Running Internationally.
Spider-Man, Sony - In development; US distribution agreement with Kids’ WB for Spring 2008 release.
Wolverine and the X-Men, First Serve Toonz (India) - 26, 30-minute episodes in development; Fall 2008 release.
Iron Man, Method Films (France) - 26, 30-minute episodes in development; Fall 2008 release.
Hulk, TBD - In development.

Marvel Character Animated Direct-to-DVD Projects
Next Avengers, Lionsgate - Targeted July 2008 release
Hulk Smash, Lionsgate - Targeted October 2008 release
Thor, Lionsgate - Targeted April 2009 release
TBD, Lionsgate - Targeted September 2009 release

Marvel Character Live Stage Projects
Spider-Man the Musical, Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle, Martin McCallum, Marvel Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment
In development/opening date to be determined; Julie Taymor director; music & lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge

Marvel Video Game Releases (Release dates controlled by Publishing partner)
Sega, Iron Man - Targeted 2008
Sega, The Incredible Hulk - Targeted 2008

So… make sure to pre-purchase those tix to the Spider-Man musical everybody.

The reason I bring this up is because of the mention of an Avengers feature film. Despite a recent statement from Marvel EIC Joe Quesada that the chances of an Avengers flick were quite high, Zak Penn (X3: The Last Stand) was hired in 2006 to work on the screen play, so there has been some work performed on the project.

But what kind of film can we expect?

The Avengers were initially created in response to the Justice League of America across the street at the offices of the  Distinguished Competition. A team made up of Marvel’s all stars, the initial Avengers team consisted of Iron Man, Giant Man (or Ant Man depending on Hank Pym’s meds that day), The Wasp, Thor and ofcourse the Hulk. It wasn’t until the Hulk departed after one too many ‘why don’t you wear proper clothes’ remark and Captain America was defrosted just in time to lead the team.

The old order did changeth again in their 16th issue and the team roster was so shuffled that only Cap remained to lead a ragtag group of former villains. It was this team that really nailed the idea perfectly for me as a fan. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye all wished to clear their names with the public by becoming Avengers. The super villains of the world could only see the loss of heavy hitters Iron Man and Thor and judged this new Avengers line-up as weak. They were not alone. Fans still either love or hate this grouping, depending on their take on what the Avengers is all about.The scaled down and de-powered Avengers  group was an opportunity to show the value of teamwork over power, strategy over brawn. It also introduced one of the all-time best feuds in comics, Hawkeye vs. Captain America. See, Hawkeye hated being ordered around, especially by some has-been fossil like Cap. By contrast, Cap viewed his team as a commando group which must be tightly coordinated and trained to accomplish their goals.  While initially offering nothing but friction, in time the team grew to trust one another and became a fighting force far stronger than ever.
In 2000, Marvel introduced the Ultimate line of comic, a chance to dodge the dreaded continuity bullet that was then threatening their financial future. It’s hard to realize that not long ago Marvel was very close to bankruptcy and this was their last attempt to make a grab at the readers. Ofcourse the grab worked and the Ultimate Marvel line has been incredibly successful for them.

This version of the Avengers  was harder edged that the 1960’s version. Formed by SHIELD as a government sponsored super hero group, this team is hardly the loose and wild group that readers were used to. Prone to stories about extreme violence, government conspiracies and substance abuse, the series was an almost instant hit with readers who had grown to look at Marvel as old hat and the Avengers as a dull establishment series.

While the concept of the Ultimates by creators Bryan Hitch and Mark Millar was to realize a what if situation of a modern Avengers film… I hardly think it’s the right direction to go in. I’ve met Millar and while I enjoy some of his other work and like the man a lot, I found this series to be far too cynical and negative to the ideas of the original comics. I’m all for a modernization of an old idea, but do we really need a hyper violent Captain America and a delusional Thor?

However, the government-sponsored bit works great and would easily establish what the point of all these heroes working together was (as opposed to Tony Stark’s butler Jarvis serving a nice meal for the Hulk).

The team should also be made up of misfits and oddities, much like the issue 16 team. Hawkeye is a great foil, so he should be in there. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are interesting characters and could tie into the X-Men movie mythology easily. I’d also love to see the android Vision included as the opportunity for both character and special effects is fantastic. And ofcourse, you’d need Captain America to lead them.

But what do you think?

With so many great line-ups in the series history, it’s difficult to choose a ‘dream team,’ but give it a try!

The New Avengers

I’ll admit that I have a weird love/hate relationship with this Marvel Comics series.The classic series had its share of ups and downs over the 600 odd issues that it saw, but you could always take the pulse of the Marvel Universe by picking up the new issue of Avengers and seeing what was going down. The Avengers was canceled quietly in the mid-90’s with very few readers even noticing.

In the 1998 Marvel Reborn event, the series returned with the blockbuster creative team of Kurt Busiek and George Perez. All in all, this volume of the Avengers was a success. Due to the style of both creators, it had a classic feel to it. The run by incoming writer Geoff Johns (more famous for his work at DC) felt like it was finally stepping into modern times, but all of that was ultimately dashed to bits.

Then Brian Michael Bendis arrived, ‘disassembled’ the team in the biggest and loudest story that killed off three characters in short succession and eliminated the title from the Marvel Comics roster for a few months.

The rebirth of the series, entitled ‘The New Avengers’ is a slick overly polished product that has the feel of an old guy trying to keep up with the times by wearing hip young fashions, but never really cutting it. The series began with a unified force of unrelated heroes (Daredevil, Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Woman and Luke Cage) stemming the tide of convicts trying to make it out of a high security Alcatraz called The Raft. In the aftermath, Iron Man coaxes Captain America into enlisting the heroes into a team as The New Avengers. The team then goes on a series of unrelated adventures drawn by artists that are so different from each other that each storyline feels like a new comic… and we still don’t know who sprung all the crooks from the Raft in the first place! New Avengers never stopped long enough to sort out what stories it was telling or where it was going and it always felt to me that this was an error on behalf of both Bendis and editorial, which made me feel cheated with each issue I purchased.

I think I’ve started and stopped buying this comic three times.

But I really have to say that after Marvel’s Civil War crossover and the creation of a ’sister’ series The Mighty Avengers, it feels like the comic has finally found its identity.

Civil War created a clean division of for and against the super hero registration act with Captain America and Iron Man acting as poster boys for each side of the argument. Spider-Man had the unusual position of seeing both sides but ultimately rebelling against Iron Man to serve alongside his outlaw friends who were determined to fight the establishment. The team created by Captain America and Iron Man to hunt down escaped super villains was like a family after a divorce when Civil War occurred. The aftermath featured a government-sanction team called the Mighty Avengers while the New Avengers dodged the police and other authority figures while trying to continue helping the innocent and fight bad guys.

Holed up in Doctor Strange’s Sanctum, the New Avengers are lead by Luke Cage with Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Iron Fist, Spider-Man and Hawkeye (now acting as Ronin). Luke is now a family man with a hot wife and a cute little baby, and perhaps it is this responsibility that caused him to connect the dots of the seemingly unrelated threats that the team has fought. In a recent issue, Luke Cage asks the team if its crazy to think that one force could have been behind the break-out of the high security prison the Raft, the secret operations in the Savage Land by SHIELD and the super hero registration act that caused the Civil War which has crippled the super hero community by turning friends on each other. No sooner does he bring this up than the team encounters evidence of a Skrull Invasion.

The Skrulls are a race of shape shifting aliens first introduced way back in Fantastic Four during the 1960’s. Their ability to mimic super heroes was a threat to the FF in that first story, where Skrulls would commit crimes making it seem like the FF had turned over to a life of villainy. It’s an inspired decision to bring that idea back now that the Marvel Universe is so unsettled. However, I worry about how this will be implemented. It seems that I’m not alone in this fear that problems in continuity can be easily explained away with ‘oh, that was a Skrull‘ as Bendis already has the New Avengers themselves theorizing that everyone from Tony Stark to the United States President must be a Skrull.

In the background of this revelation is another plot thread about The Hood. Born in a little-read miniseries by Paul Jenkins and Kyle Holtz about 5-10 years ago, The Hood is a master super villain who has gathered the lesser-known villains of the Marvel Universe together into a kind of evil co-op. Their first caper involves the theft of Deathlok. The original plan involves using Deathlok as a weapon on Avengers Headquarters but that idea is cast out because there’s no profit involved. Instead, the villains raid a bank housed below the Baxter Building and make out with millions.

That, my readers, is a smart super villain. The whole idea here is that the super heroes are so busy fighting each other that they aren’t organized enough to fight such a finely tuned machine as the Hood’s gang. In future issues, I hope this plot thread continues to satisfy because for one thing Bendis is far better writing for crooks than he is for super heroes.

As I mentioned before, I have a love/hate relationship with the New Avengers. In my view it shot for style over substance and told shoddily plotted stories that had little to do with each other and left far too many plot threads hanging for my taste. But it seems that after the creation of the Mighty Avengers title (which is far smoother and super-heroic in its execution), I can see where Bendis wants to take this series. A quirky, humorous and edgy title with lots of character and action, the New Avengers has finally clicked for me. The addition of Lenil Francis Yu to the series as regular artist certainly helps establish the ‘feel’ of the series and it has picked up so much energy in the past year that it could run forever… or until another young new writer decides to show up and kill everyone.

Recommended Reading:

New Avengers Vol. 6: Revolution
The Hood (New Avengers)
Avengers Assemble, Vol. 1