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All This Flying is Making Me Tired: Superhero Fatigue…

Well, blockbuster season is really kicking into swing at the moment. Next week will see the release of X-Men: First Class, which will be the second major superhero movie of the summer, following Branagh’s superb Thor. There are two more due to touch down before the end of the blockbuster season, Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger. It’s fascinating how large the superhero genre has grown in recent years, to the point where one might legitimately argue that it has subgenres. Part of me wonders if this particular blockbuster fad is approaching its climax – if the superhero movie might out-stay its welcome, and go the way of the Western.

Is the superhero genre's blackest night ahead?

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Iron Man 3: Tony Stark to Face Real World Baddies…

You know what? I was sad to hear that Jon Favreau wasn’t coming back to direct Iron Man 3, especially after Marvel so thoroughly mucked with his vision of Iron Man 2 – turning the second act into an extended infomercial for The Avengers. However, I was kinda glad to see Shane Black come on board, if only because his last collaboration with Robert Downey Jr. (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) was pure gold. Anyway, Black – as a screenwriter – will be writing the new Iron Man film, and he’s promising a Tom Clancy plot and “real world villains.” So what exactly does that mean?

The other "Man of Steel" (well, gold-titanium alloy)...

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Now That’s First Class: X-Men – First Class & Superhero Nostalgia

I have to admit that X-Men: First Class is a movie that I find myself in a wild state of flux over. At times, I’m delighted by the sensational casting, the fantastic director and the wonderful artistic design that we’re seeing. However, I am equally curious as to what the point of a prequel is, or why Bryan Singer jumped ship so quickly. At times, it’s one of my most anticipated movies of the coming year, while at others it’s just another film awaiting release. Somewhat lost amid the announcement that Bane and Catwoman would be the villains of The Dark Knight Rises, Fox released a slew of information about their newest X-Men film last week. looking at eth photos, I can’t help wondering whether the superhero movie genre is on the cusp of the nostalgia-fest which has swept their comic book counterparts in recent years.

He always had a magnetic personality...

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Absolute New Frontier (Review/Retrospective)

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is a comic book review of the graphic novel which inspired the animated movie Justice League: New Frontier

Today some would say that those struggles are all over– that the horizons have been explored– that all the battles have been won– that there is no longer an American frontier.

The problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won– and we stand today on the edge of a new frontier– the frontier of the 1960s– a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils– a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.

– John F. Kennedy, 1960

It’s a Kennedy-era superhero saga, capturing a lot of the spirit of the sixties, the era that really saw DC comics – and comic books as a whole – massively reinvent themselves.

Green Lantern's light...

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Non-Review Review: Batman – Under the Red Hood

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is one of the “stand-alone” animated movies produced by the creative team that gave us the television shows. 

You did it! You found a way to win and everybody still loses!

– The Joker

The story of Batman, boiled down to its most essential elements, is a tragedy. He’s a character defined by hurt and loss – the suffering and failures he has endured while fighting simply to stay alive in an uncertain world. The reason that the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood works so well is because it manages to capture that observation perfectly in its relatively tight runtime. Over the course of the movie, Batman has several of his rather glaring failures touted out in front of him and – what’s more – faces the possibility that he may himself end up obsolete.

The joke’s on Batman…

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Bats isn’t in my Belfry: Nolan’s Batman & Superman and the Inevitable Justice League Film…

Word filtering through the grapevine is that we can expect a “big announcement” from Warner Brothers and DC comics in the next few weeks. Two words seem to be on everybody’s mind at the moment: Justice League. I mean, it makes sense. Warner Brothers are in real need of a new cashcow franchise. There’s only so long they can pump out Harry Potter movies (the final one is due out next year), and the DC comics titles offer a nearly bottomless pile of untapped fantasy-esque cookie-cutter blockbuster-ready properties that they can churn out with instant-ready popularity and geek appeal. And, let’s face it, Marvel has demonstrated with at least Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (if not The Incredible Hulk) that a shared film universe is a profitable investment. Warner and DC certainly missed the train on that one. They must regard their rivals with envious eyes, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against them. And, to be frank, DC is in a much better position than Marvel to exploit this team-up. Marvel sold the Fantastic Four, the X-Men (including Wolverine) and Spider-Man to different companies, effectively meaning that they can’t be included in Marvel’s on-screen universe. However, DC hasn’t sold any big names. However, it has a problem. Christopher Nolan – the man in charge of both Batman and Superman – has decided that he doesn’t want to share. And maybe that’s not a bad thing, after all. 

Should Superman sit this one out?

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Non-Review Review: Superman

Tell me your heart doesn’t skip a beat when you hear the familiar brass of John Williams’ iconic score. Or that you can resist a smile as a small child introduces the movie by opening a comic book and reading aloud. Or that the opening shot of the crystal canyons of Krypton doesn’t make your spine tingle just a bit. Richard Donner’s Superman is perhaps correctly regarded as the father of the whole superhero genre, and deservedly so, but it’s also a stunningly well put together film in its own right. You could argue that this film predates the whole “superhero” genre in Hollywood, and – as such- more deserves classification as a “fantasy” film. And it can certainly stand with the very best of them.

Don't worry, he's trained for this sort of emergency...

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Non-Review Review: The Incredibles

I think Pixar’s The Incredibles must stand as one of their best productions – alongside Finding Nemo, perhaps. It’s certainly one of their more conventional entries in the Pixar stable, in that it’s offered in the blockbuster format of the decade (superhero adventure), but – like the very best of their work – it’s so much more. A whole host of Pixar’s films – Toy Story and Finding Nemo chief among them – deal with the notion of paternal abandonment (though perhaps more fond of addressing the story of parents abandoned by kids, rather than kids abandoned by adults), but The Incredibles is perhaps the one which best deals with the challenges that managing a ‘functioning’ family.

That's one incredible family...

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Spider-Man: Blue (Review)

Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale just work well together. They’re the pair behind The Long Halloween, the Batman story which strongly informed Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Somehow they bring out the best in each other, even though Loeb’s recent output has generally been less than stellar. At Marvel, they’re put together a rough thematic “trilogy” offering a nostalgic look at the early careers of various superheroes. Spider-Man: Blue is the middle part of that trilogy (coming after Daredevil: Yellow and before Hulk: Grey). I’m about to commit a cardinal sin, so brace yourself: I think Spider-Man: Blue is the weakest of the three books.

Welcome to the spider's web...

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Thor and Captain America Costumes Leaked On-Line…

I actually think these are both pretty cool and as reasonably faithful as a big screen live-action adaptation could be, but the costumes for Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger have been leaked on-line. Click below for bigger images.

Source for Thor Concept Art: Cinema Blend

Source for Captain America Concept Art: Fused Film

I am actually quite happy with both, I think they are pragmatic adaptations of costumes which – while iconic – simply wouldn’t work in real life or on the big screen. It does seem though, in banishing the wings from the helmets of each hero (and Thor’s helmet altogether) that Marvel has a vendetta against feathers.

I am a little surprised that Thor hasn’t been “Ultimised” at all. The Marvel movies have shown a trend so far of trying to move iconic heroes more towards reality (or at least in the general direction) and I had kinda expected that Thor’s whole “Viking armour” schtick might be a bit much for mainstream movie-goers. I was kinda expecting something a bit more stripped-down, similar to the look Bryan Hitch gave him in the modernised retelling of the origin of the Avengers, The Ultimates, much in the same way that the movies have presented the Samuel L. Jackson version of Nick Fury, rather than the mainstream spandex-wearing version of the super spy – most memorably brought to life as David Hasselhoff, for those with a fondness for terrible movies.

Its hammer time...

Still, I’m just surprised. I’m certainly not disappointed. If Kenneth Branagh thinks he can pull this off, then, well… I trust Kenneth Branagh. Certainly more than I trust Joe Johnson.

Though the look above has kept the black “power” waistcoat (complete with bubbles), it’s more clearly influenced by the classic conception of the character, complete with chainmail armour and red cape. For those interested in nerdy nuggets of trivia, it’s the waistcoat which was the source of his power in The Ultimates, leading various skeptical characters to suggest that he wasn’t a god of thunder, just a nut job who had stolen some secret technology. This allowed the writer Mark Millar to explore the character’s divinity rather than simply throwing him into the mix with the other more technologically-driven heroes and skirting over the whole “a god walks amongst you” bit.

I’m now kinda curious about how Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull will look in Captain America. A red Skull is probably as least as difficult as that iconic red, white & blue uniform to adapt to screen.