EDITORIAL: It’s the Summer of the Comic Book Geek: So Why do I Feel Cheated?

With The Avengers now officially out in the U.S. I’ve had a chance to see most of it (though I plan on trying again after work today) and so far it feels as if I’ve been fed a lot of (fill it in). To the Avengers credit though, it is now officially the most exciting movie on my list; replacing the Dark Knight Rises unfortunately. When this year began I was incredibly excited about the Dark Knight Rises, so-so about the Avengers (though Iron Man is my favorite comic book movie) and barely interested in the Amazing Spider Man (it’s just too soon man!). And maybe the “too soon” part is the problem. When this millennium began, we had a couple Batman movies to talk about, Blade was awesome, and Spider Man and the X-Men were debuting in what would become the explosion of Marvel stock (that I got a piece of – thanks to a little luck), and the era of mainstream comic book movies.

But after only a decade of this explosion, why does it seem like
everything has already been made when clearly we’ve only scratched the surface? With so much material to go with, you reboot Spider Man?-really? And as much as I love Nolan’s take on Batman, even that property is starting to feel a little cramped. If they’ve stayed away from the less popular and unknown characters for a reason I cannot see what it is. The history doesn’t show as much. Blade, I knew him as a kid; but did my wife? Nope; and she liked the movie more than I did. Sin City, The Watchmen, Red, Kick-Ass, The Spirit, Jonah Hex; all of those movies were awesome, and I’d watch any of them before I’d watch another Spider Man movie. And honestly, after watching the newest Batman trailer, I’m starting to feel that way about Nolan’s conclusion as well.

I know that The Dark Knight was released in 2008. So three years in between Batman Begins and the Dark Knight is actually a little less than the Dark Knight and TDKR; but why does it feel like the movies are just running in a continuous blurb now? The newest trailer for TDKR is just awful. Maybe after three bad trailers from that movie I’ve just given up; or maybe they’re just feeding us so much now that it’s all starting to look like crap. When the summer started I really thought that the Avengers were just the entre to what was going to be the summer of the Bat. Now I just feel like the Avengers are here, that’ll be fun, and then what?-Christmas.

Maybe if Hollywood spent more time developing characters, or taking chances, we’d get more space between the better known characters, and therefore, more build up and pay off in the end. The fact that I spent two hours reading about the new Prometheus film (and everything related to Greek Mythology later) on Wikipedia is a pretty good indicator to me that comic book films are slipping; because I could usually care less about horror films. And some will say that I’m not a big enough fan, or that all of these movies are great for fan-boys; maybe. Just be careful of what you wish for, because frankly, some of this stuff is starting to look so average it’s beginning to look like pizza on a Thursday instead of an epic night at IMAX.
But then again, I’m writing this on an empty stomach.