Suffering from Success

So it happened again. There I was sitting atop a mountain bellowing into the wind. I was calling for rain when out of nowhere. I hear my name being called. As I look up, I see a shimmering horn and the flames of the Flaming Unicorn. I spoke to the unicorn and told him how I ran and spread his enlightenment unto the gentiles, and that he had been right about his assessments. I saw the unicorn shed a conrete tear that caused an earthquake the other day. And the unicorn said unto me "Dough, dont you see. Do you not see whats happening ? Soon they will all be sissies and Jar Jar Binks. Keep up the good fight Dough Im out...... As I saw the unicorn flap his massive flaming wings and set fire to the mountain top as he flew away. And I watched until it hit me what he meant. Why have we not had an R rated CBM since the Punisher. Where are the dark superheroes? Where is the blood and gore ? So now I give you the gift and the curse........



The Gift of CBMs are that these are the people that we grew up reading and only dreamed about seeing on the big screen. When Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher and that cheesy Capt.America were all we had. Now look at Cap all grown up with special effects (concrete tear). Now we get to see the Avengers finally better than the X-men and all whole genre that is larger than Batman. There was a time when the only hero that could translate into a viable movie was Superman and Batman. And Superman started heading in the wrong direction with his epic battle against nuclear man. Now look we have an expanded universe and look forward to so much from our CBMs. Now we follow the genre like sports fans and football players. We are truly in a Golden age for comics all over again. People who never ever read a comic are now involved. Comic characters are now on main stream TV, used in commercials and even have sites dedicated to them. Comic books have evolved within the last 10 years faster than any genre I've ever seen. I mean we love it, but with love comes hate and we shall soon hate it..



The curse. The curse is on the way faster than a weed head to a brownie. With all of the things we love about CBMs it is wearing thin. It's becoming formulaic. Enter hero and origin story, add a little bit of comedy, scenes where they discover their powers, and a pinch of love story. Rinse,wash and repeat. Now with the success of the genre that means that these movies have to be kid friendly. So we wont get the heroes that diehard fans enjoy. There will be no Lobo, Deadpool is out of the question (unless they do that garbage X-men guy (face palm) ). No punisher, A weak Ghost Rider, and various other watered down characters. Star Wars fans can understand when Lucas came back with a corny vengeance witha Jar Jar Binks. With great success comes great selling out. It is difficult to not to acknowledge the direction things are going in. Look at the heroes they will be introducing I mean we have an Ant-Man movie coming out for comics sake. Pym is probably irrelevent after we find out he doesnt create Ultron. We couldve gotten anything,but I mean Ant-Man. That is a pure cash grab. No comicbook fan would ever have told you they wanted an Ant-Man movie. Marvel will clean cut everything and soon DC will follow suit. WE even saw a cash grab with the Old Spawn and its good ole G rating. I would love to see a comic roll out like Breaking Bad, Lobo in a walking dead type show, Or Punisher in something like the Wire. If you think about it there are so many comic characters that they could explore. But with studios promoting the same heroes like Batman went so far as to have a show that he wont even be in. The audacity of these people. That wouldve been a great show for Nightwing to be in and evolve with a dark edge and give us something different. We do have a gritty show in Arrow, but I mean its Green Arrow people. Again not necessarily a fan pick, but in hindsight it was a safe bet if it wouldve failed they could've said "hey it just the Green Arrow guys". But you get my point. Soon things will be Disney and have a toy. I just want a comicbook based show that doesnt have a toy with it. or wont come in a Happy Meal. It's just my interpretation of the situation. Until the unicorn comes and hollas at me again, Yall chime in or out