News Around the Net: Comic-Con Edition!
Lots of cool news coming out of Comic-Con this week!
Let’s begin with the hilarious Game of Thrones “In Memoriam” video:
http://youtu.be/9m4ZPULXJKw
Look! It’s Caesar and his Ape Council! Awesome.
The Simpsons is going to do a crossover episode with Family Guy? Awesome! Even more exciting? The Simpsons is also going to do a crossover with the cancelled-again Futurama!!! Oh boy I can’t wait for that.
Speaking of crossovers, in news that I found VERY surprising, DC/Warner Brothers have announced that the follow-up to Man of Steel is going to be a Batman/Superman film. As much as I love all the allusions, in the announcement, to the seminal Superman-Batman grudge match in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (and I love the Frank Miller-inspired Batman/Superman logo that you’ll see if you scroll down this article) I must confess to not be so excited that they are rushing into a crossover film. I felt that Man of Steel had a lot of flaws, but it was a terrific reintroduction of Superman. I’d love to see them get a little deeper into exploring this new incarnation of the character, before throwing him into a Batman crossover film. Plus, since it seems clear that Christian Bale will not be reprising the role, wouldn’t it be weird to introduce a new Batman in this crossover film, without a stand-alone film of his own under his belt? The whole thing feels to me that they are rushing things in order to combat Marvel’s success with The Avengers.
Still, if done right, a Batman/Superman film could sure be awesome. I must admit that despite my qualms, there is some geeky excitement there.
I feel similarly about Marvel’s announcement that The Avengers 2 will be called Age of Ultron. The deadly, humanity-hating robot Ultron is a classic Avengers villain, and the thought of seeing him realized on film should be tremendously exciting. And it is, for sure. It’s just that I am really thrown for a loop since after seeing Thanos at the end of The Avengers, and with the cosmic Guardians of the Galaxy set as one of Marvel’s Phase 2 films coming before Avengers 2, it seemed like Marvel was setting the stage for a big cosmic story with Thanos as the main bad-guy. I thought that was such an awesome plan. I am very uncertain, now, as to how Ultron is going to play into all that. Is Thanos going to be held until The Avengers 3? That is a looong way away!
Adding to my uncertainty is the specificity of the subtitle of Age of Ultron. That is actually the title of a Marvel Comics crossover series that only just ended a few weeks ago. The story had an awesome opening (set after Ultron’s apocalyptic conquest of Earth and massacre of most of Earth’s heroes) but then turned into a time-travel scenario that seemed to me to fizzle out into an anticlimactic ending. Giving The Avengers 2 the same title as this recently-concluded series seems to imply that the film will be adapting this story. It’s hard for me to imagine how that could be the case, as the Age of Ultron comic book series was pretty steeped in Marvel Comics lore. We haven’t even met Hank Pym (Ultron’s creator) in the Marvel movie universe. And, again, all of this seems a long way away from the outer-space epic with Thanos that I was expected. Marvel definitely has my faith for now, but I am very curious to see where this all goes.
(UPDATE: In this video Joss Whedon says they are NOT adapting the recent Age of Ultron storyline (which causes me to wonder why they used that exact title for the film) and that Hank Pym will not be in the movie. The former makes me happy, the latter makes me sad.)
Lots more super-hero movie news from Comic-Con, which is no surprise. This description of the first footage from Guardians of the Galaxy sounds awesome — I cannot wait to see the first trailer for this thing! (Here is more on the Guardians of the Galaxy panel.) Confirmation that Sharon Carter will be in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, plus more news on that Cap sequel and the Thor sequel that all sounds very promising. Lots of Spider-Man 2 news.
But the upcoming super-hero film that I am most excited about is, without a doubt, Bryan Singer’s return to the X-Men universe with his adaptation of Days of Future Past. Click here and here for tantalizing glimpses at what was shown and discussed at Comic-Con. If this film works it is going to be off-the-charts awesome.
In non-super-hero news, tidbits about series 3 of Sherlock are starting to dribble out. Can’t wait for this!
Let’s end where we began, with a little more Game of Thrones fun to be found here.