House to Astonish Episode 85
We’re back after our week away, looking at the coming out of Alan Scott, the wedding of Northstar, the crusade of One Million Moms, the Eagle Awards imbroglio, the ever-increasing character cast of Iron Man 3, the continuing success of the Avengers and where Marvel TV goes next. There are also reviews of Mind MGMT, Ravagers and Grim Leaper, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe finds that cash rules everything around it. All this plus the best double glazing salesman, U-list villains and an enormous bunny rabbit.
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Al: it was that bad a pun.
I watched about half of the first episode of Ultimate Spider-Man and the thing it struck me as wanting to be was Shin Chan, of all things (the earlier English dub, not the entirely mad later one that seems to have gained a cult following in the US). That and mediocre anime and manga. It was trying WAY too hard to be funny though and failed miserably.
Their insistence on it being worthwhile is having a further negative effect on the Avengers EMH (beyond cancellation and dumbing down). Apparently Josh Keaton (the voice of Spectacular Spider-Man) had recorded dialogue as Spider-Man for Avengers but it was all replaced with the guy who is Ultimate Spider-Man. Which is a bit of a slap in the face for Keaton and fans of Spec.
Thank you for reminding me what a valuable public service Scourge performed by rounding up lame villains from across the Marvel universe and shooting them in the head.
And for making milk shoot out of my nose.
From Dale Eaglesham’s Forum:
“This drives me absolutely crazy: Greg, Fred and I do all the work of bringing the series back and they cancel it on us. Why didn’t they let US do the wedding “event” which is clearly garnering attention, to stimulate readership perhaps keep Alpha Flight going? This pisses me off. Oh no, let the “X” books do it, as if they don’t get enough attention. Sigh……
This wedding was in the works on AF.”
Personally, I’m happier to see Marjorie Liu writing it, but I’ve snarked on the Alpha Flight mini quite a bit already.
Oh also, Karma had also been taken out of New Mutants as well, so that’s THREE whole characters that weren’t in use elsewhere! Totally justified.
Don’t watch Ultimate Spider-Man; Peter Parker’s been changed into an idiot brat and in an attempt to keep people’s attention the story is interrupted by him incessantly addressing the camera with terrible jokes.
I don’t know if Marvel’s movie deals with non-Disney studios are only for characters created up to a point; for example, X-Men: First Cast used Darwin who wasn’t created until 2006.
The deals seem to confuse even the people involved – there was a quote from Kevin Feige on Bleeding Cool regarding the possibly of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch appearing in either Fox’s X-Men films or an Avengers sequel. (http://tinyurl.com/7p8vdfb)
Er, *X-Men: Fist Class
Oh I give up
Great episode! Had me laughing out loud quite a bit!
Oh, and kudos for highjacking the OneMillionMoms thing to give support to Marvel & DC!
Ultimate Spider-Man had an episode with Frog Thor, so it can’t be all bad: http://www.avclub.com/articles/field-trip,75235/
I really want to read Mind MGMT now, but of course my LCS didn’t get it.
In speculation to the question about Astonishing. If the Wedding was planned for Alpha Flight but the book was cancelled out from under the event and since The Cecilia Reyes stuff is carried over from X-23, I’d guess marvel had a writer in need of work and a big event plus a former A list book and combined them. I’d also guess Pak’s tenure on the book was going to be longer than four issues but got shunted to a new launch.
Some of the confusion in Ravagers is because kidnapping and torturing kids was Harvest’s method of recruiting future Ravagers. So the kids rescued were the Ravagers’ victims and at the same time they were prospectively the next crop of Ravagers.
One of Fairchild’s set is a Ravager who defected. Thus he started out as one of Harvest’s victims, graduated to being one of his henchmen, then made the perfectly reasonable choice to ditch Harvest at the first opportunity.
Still I can’t think of any reason why these kids would want to call themselves the Ravagers. Their escape was a case of choosing option C when given the choice between becoming a Ravager or becoming dead.
On the question of whether Alan Scott is the first gay superhero to lead a team: it’s about as low-profile as you can get and still count, but DC’s Power Company was led by Josiah Power, who had a boyfriend.
I think Iron Patriot is an obvious twist on Iron Man, created for the Avengers comic, and could never have made it in a Spidey movie legally. And creatively, I don’t see the Spidey film makers wanting Not-Iron Man in their film anyway, regardless of whether the character originated with Norman Osborn or not.
I thought Amazing Spider-Man got worse after Howard Mackie left. He wasn’t very good on the book, but he was better than JMS. I’ve read a few issues of his Ghost Rider (it crossed over with Jim Lee’s X-Men once). I think people are too kind to it.
I think half of the success of Ghost Rider (Dan Ketch Years) was down to Mark Texiera’s artwork. It was definitely unique and fit the subject matter well, in those days.
But yeah, Howard Mackie was average to mediocre on just about everything he’s done.
My grammar has left me today. I think I have about three different tenses battling for prominence in that post.
My hope is that the unannounced Marvel movie would be an Avengers-related character we haven’t seen before, in order to establish them for Avengers 2, since that appears to be how that works. I’d also hope it’ll add another superheroine into the mix: Ms Marvel would be my favourite, but I’ll settle for an Ant-Man flick that also introduces Jan.
Ravagers … yeah, my reaction was “It’s okay for a Mackie comic” which I realise is probably the definition of damning with faint praise.
For some reason I’m deeply amused at Roy Thomas naming a wealthy philanthropist “Andrew Regal”. I can only assume Stan vetoed “Andrew Schmarnegie”.
Iron Fist would be my choice for next movie. He’d add something they don’t have (martial arts), and has quite a cinematic origin.
@Daibhid Ceannadeach –
I’ve been quietly hoping that the rebranding of Ms. Marvel as the new Captain Marvel is part of a plan to make her film-able. I think especially if they played up her military past, she’d be a great addition to the Avengers movie franchise – although I am slightly biased in that she’s my favourite (major) Avenger.
It’s interesting, because if you want to add another female member to the Avengers for a second film (which I’d hope they would) there aren’t any good, easy options.
The two obvious choices are the Wasp and Ms Marvel. But Jan’s irrevocably linked to Ant-Man and they’re still dragging their feet on his solo film, let alone giving him a sidekick and Carol has a really convoluted origin dependent on Kree and Captain Marvel. Trashing that and coming up with something new for her would work, but without at least the Kree element could prove to be bland. Beyond that there’s what, She-Hulk, who I think would be far too gimmicky for mainstream acceptance and at a stretch Mockingbird, who’s yet another underpowered glorified SHIELD agent.
I still maintain that they should have had Carol Danvers (as a SHEILD agent) in the first Avengers movie (in the Maria Hill role probably) and had Loki’s device empower her at the end of the film, thereby eliminating said Kree backstory, and giving them a ‘new’ character for the sequel.
(It is really tragically fanfictiony that I actually came out of the cinema with a fully formed and highly detailed rewrite in my head).
I think that if you want Wasp, you don’t have ant-man. Call her Janet Pym and have her be the inventor of the Pym particles.
Or use the backstory of Ultimate Wasp and just make Jan a mutant.
I was so hopeful that Ravagers would be at least decent, because I’ve been defending Howard Mackie for years now. Yes, he has written some awful, AWFUL comic books, but his reinvention of Ghost Rider was brilliant. Sadly, though, Ravagers was closer to his dreadful X-Factor run than it was to Ghost Rider.
Ms Marvel is the only other new character I really want to see show up in the Avengers. The way I’d think of introducing her is in the background in the new films – Iron man 3, then Thos 2 – as Coulson’s replacement and being un-powered. She can then be powered up in Cap 2 (by something connected to the cosmic cube… hydra weapon powered super solider serum?) and have her own movie (the TBA movie) that leads into Avengers 2.
Iron Fist and Luke Cage would be another 2 characters I’d like to see in a movie. I dunno if I’d do these guys seperate or I’d say go straight to them being a duo. Have we done a super hero buddy cop movie before? And also, would we want these characters as Avengers in the movie-verse. My guess would be yes. From a marketing stand point, both these guys have been Avengers in comicdom for a few years now, so you may as well get some of the new blood in the movies as well.
Just a shame that we can’t get Wolverine and Spider-man as on screen Avengers.
LUKE CAGE & IRON FIST might be a little too quirky for a feature film, though it’s easy enough to imagine, I guess: RUSH HOUR with superpowers and different personalities.
The simplest way to introduce Jan is certainly to do an ANT MAN movie in which she’s a love interest who eventually takes the potion as well. At the end they’re a happy, pint-sized couple. Throw in Vision and Ultron, you’ve got a movie.
You could always amalgmate the Pyms for AVENGERS 2, but I think a very-in-love microcouple buzzing around is too charming a visual to let go. They’d really be a great onscreen act. And you could kill Henry at the end of AVENGERS 2 to improve the gender disparity, if ANT MAN doesn’t generate receipts.
***SPOLIER ALERT***
I thought the Agent Coulson who died was an LMD in The Avengers.
***SPOILER ALERT***
***SPOLIER ALERT***
No, that’s just wishful thinking.
I don’t think they’d do that. LMD’s haven’t been established in the movie-verse, so bringing them in to bring back a 2nd tier character is exactly what’s been wrong with comics for years and could almost single-handedly crush the interest the movie going public had. I’ve been reading comics for 20years and that stuff still shits me.
What are the odds that Alan Scott’s boyfriend will turn out to be an alternate version of Obsidian (Todd Rice). Just to be ‘edgy’.
I used to quite like DC, but the New 52 reboot of everything that still leaves Batman/Green Lantern continuity unaffected. Except they are which causes headaches (and SUPER PSYCHIC BLACK MASK) has led to me mainly giving up and reading Marvel instead.
Mackie’s Ghost Rider run had some good bits to it; if nothing else, it stands as one of the most successful character revitalizations Marvel’s ever done.
But yeah, it’s apparently fallen prey to the same retro-slagging as Loeb’s Long Halloween (i.e. “this person has written a bunch of crap…therefore, everything they’ve *ever* written is crap, even if it’s something we used to like.”)
Because the idea of someone blowing their creative wad relatively early in life and spending the rest of their career struggling — and failing — to match that initial success? Beyond the comprehension of fanboys, it seems.
Did you just compare Howard Markie’s Ghost Rider to the Long Halloween?
Is there a word in superhero comics more devalued than “iconic”?
“Wolverine”?
I thought the “TBA” Marvel movie was going to be the Edgar Wright Ant-Man film, or has that now been cancelled?
I’ve long said that Marvel need to do a Daredevil Tv series. There’d be plenty of material; they could do the martial arts superhero stuff, all the romance stuff, plus all the courtroom bits and pieces.
Yes Howard Mackie’s Ghost Rider is ok. It’s very early 1990s but it has its moments.
Paul, it’s been said before but your Mutant X reviews are easily among your best work, exceeding even those which mocked Chuck Austen’s many failures. Just sublime.
“I thought the “TBA” Marvel movie was going to be the Edgar Wright Ant-Man film, or has that now been cancelled?”
No, but Wright’s going to be working on The World’s End for the next while, so the scheduling probably doesn’t work.
I used to read Green Lantern now and then over the years and only stopped after Johns canonization of Hal Jordan, and still I never read a comic with Alan Scott in it. I knew he existed, but never would have said he is a iconic character. Of course the whole Earth-2 stuff never interested me at all, so what do I know.
Wasn´t the whole Nu52 done to eliminate concepts like Earth-2 in the first place?
Still, I guess Scott is more known then Coldblood, who I never even heard about before the podcast. I had to wiki him. It is a strange choice for a movie. Wasn´t here any interesting female villian as a foil for Stark? Coldblood? Really?
I kind of liked Mackie´s Ghost Rider before they rode it into the ground. But I don´t know if I had liked it as much without Texiera. Honestly I don´t recollect much about the actual writing, but the art was nice and kept me buying it.
Good to see that all those joking that Harras would surely take his old friend Mackie on board were proved right. Can be only a matter of time before Austen gets his chance.
Madame Masque is a good female villain from Iron Man’s rogues gallery.
You know, compared to Marvel’s Mechano and Arcade, maybe Paris Hilton isn’t that bad afterall?
Congrats on your classic, iconic handling of the ‘One Million Moms’ (the old 52?) pout.
Maybe we should retcon Alpha Flight 106, “…Now and forever,… I… Am… Gay!”
Have you stopped to think that not only are mutants a metaphor for minorities, but the way the concept has developed they’re an especially apt metaphor for gays?You grow up like everybody else, then puberty hits and this strange new world that’s wonderful and scary opens up, and suddenly you’re an outsider with a secret and it’s not entirely out of the question that sometime the government might send killer robots after you.
Trust fund brats going after the xmen?
Isnt that the new hellfire club?
@M
Yeah, when the first X-Men film came out, Ian McKellan said that he thought that this was a better metaphor than the racial prejudice one, because at least members of a racial minority grew up with parents who were in the same group and knew what they were going through.
I’ve also always thought mutantcy is a better metaphor for gay people than other minorities, for the reasons listed above. It’s obviously something the creators have thought of too.
However stupid and clunky, the Legacy Virus was obviously intended to be an AIDS analogue. When Moira MacTaggert caught it, that was obviously the moment where someone realized regular humans needs to be susceptible as well in order for it to work.
Also, the X-books have more gay/bi characters running around than any other franchise. Northstar, Karma, Anole, Graymalkin, Bling!, Rictor and Shatterstar. (Not to mention Mystique.)
Also, I think Ms Marvel would be an awesome addition, but the idea of an Iron Fist movie is pretty exciting to me. The K’un-L’un mythos are so, so, so great.
MIND MGMT is available digitally from Dark Horse. There are three preview short stories available for free right now, and the first issue at full price. The previews were intriguing enough that I’m thinking of picking up the series, but haven’t decided yet if I’ll wait for the collection, or pick up the digital issues when the price drops (I think Dark Horse does the one-month later price drop that most companies publishing single issues same-day-digital other than Marvel do) or get the single print issues if they’re available next time I wander into a comic shop or do a mail order. Now I’m wondering if the digital version includes all the extras from the print version you describe, but it is 27 pages which seems substantial.
I think Ms. Marvel is the only major female Avenger that would work in the movies. (Or “Captain Marvel” – because if you like a comic book character, you’re sure to like them just as much if they look different and are called something else. It’s the ill-defined, fictional person INSIDE the suit you develop an attachment to, not the superhero persona, right?).
The Wasp would be great, except that I personally simply do not believe the special effects are there for her powers. I have never seen a movie successfully alter an actor’s height by more than few feet (basically, shrinking them shorter than a Hobbit or growing them more than whatever it takes to make a short actor look taller than his love interest) without it looking absolutely, laugh-it-off-the-screen ludicrous. It’s the same reason I belive that a classic depiction of Galactus could never have worked in the second Fantastic Four movie. I think your brain has certain expecations about the level of detail the characters at different sizes should have – you couldn’t possibly focus your eyes on a tiny character and a normal-sized character at the same time – and the way they should move, and if the special effects don’t get it exactly right, it will look too off to be satisfying. I hope they prove me wrong, but until I see it on screen, I don’t think they can do it.
She-Hulk wouldn’t work because it would have to either be a woman in green body paint, which would look terrible, or a CGI character, which no one who likes the character would want to see. Plus the name seems to strike anyone who didn’t grow up with the character as ridiculous. Scarlet Witch wouldn’t work on any level – you’d have to remove her connection to Magneto, she couldn’t be a mutant, and her powers would have to be overhauled to make them not seem like “whatever the plot needs her to do” for her to be worked into a satisfying narrative. Tigra might work if they gave her some clothes to wear, but “sexy cat girl” would probably come off as too fanservicey to be taken seriously.
I assume fx are good enough these days to use the other captain marvel (monica). Theres also Moondragon. Nerds are prpb still talking 30 years later about persis khambata from thr first tre movie.
That said, id love to see a big chart about whicj characters are owned by whicj film franchiseh
I think there are plenty of superheroines who would work fine in the next Avengers movie, if they were inclined. It’s not like it would be unheard of to take a character that is less prominent, like Firebird, and make her a prominent member of the cast in another medium, a la Hawkgirl on the Justice League cartoon.
Wasn’t the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel an Avenger in good standing for a long time? Or, as Alex suggests, Moondragon, who as a “cosmic” character fits in with Thanos as the villain. My personal choice would be Jocasta, who has a great tragic backstory directly tied to a major Avengers villain.
ZZZ: I’ve often considered how giant people like Galactus and the Celestials would really look. I mean, if you look at even a smallish building, perspective plays all sorts of tricks on you. The top looks much smaller than the bottom, straight lines seem curved, and so-on. If Galactus was reaching for you, you’d probably see this immense hand connected to an arm that’s really skinny at the shoulder, connected to a body that has a head and feet that are much too small for it, and pointed away from you. Not terribly dramatic.
Come to think of it, did Rob Liefeld ever draw Galactus?
Bahahahaha. Rob Liefeld sucks. Great comment.
A Galactus with no feet … that would be an odd way to go.
I wonder how a combination of Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers would come across? Basically, go with Monica Rambeau, but give her powers closer to Ms. Marvel’s. I think letting her actually turn into energy would be a problematic effect to pull off visually – not to mention having a character who can literally move at the speed of light, which is easy enough to depict on a static comic book page but impossible to properly capture in motion – and far to prone to abuse (by all logic, she should be literally impossible to hit, much less hurt – comic writers get around it by having someone fire a blast and brag about how it will hurt her “even in her energy form” and hoping you don’t stop to think about how he hit something moving that fast – in a movie, you have to SHOW that), and if the recent Green Lantern movie is anything to go by, characters that leave energy trails behind them as they fly are another visual effect Hollywood hasn’t quite sorted out yet (seriously, it looked like they just had green tails). But Monica Rambeau as someone who can just fly and shoot energy blasts might be more in-line with the effects and power levels of the characters in the movies.
One thing (which might be entirely in my head) that does strike me as a consideration, though, is that, unless you count Banner’s ability to change into the Hulk, the actualy “powers” any of the characters in the movie have are enhanced physical abilities – superstrength, toughness, agility, fast healing, etc. Everything else comes from equipment (even if that equipment is a billion-dollar suit of battle armor or Mjolnr). It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, and I’m sure it sounds stupid to some people to even suggest that a movie with Thor and Iron Man in it would consider any powers “too flashy,” but I wonder if they wouldn’t be reluctant to show someone actually firing energy blasts from their hands as opposed to just being able to do things anyone else can do much, much better.
(Yeah, that last paragraph should say “…the only actual…” not “…the actualy…” Not sure if that was clear enough to just leave the typo alone.)