bigdamnhero

Thank you for saying so.   But I find it hard to believe Sony just called up Kevin Feige one day and said, "Hey, how would you like us to hand you creative control over a new Spider-Man movie?" I'm pretty sure Feige did quite a bit of back-room lobbying and negotiating to make that happen.

http://moviepilot.com/p/scarlett-johansson-captain-america/3906164

To be honest, I'm astonished that Captain Marvel is getting made. The perception in Holkywood is that female leads don't sell tickets. It quickly becomes self fulfilling. My worry is that instead of pushing ahead with a known popular female character in BW, they're trying to launch an entirely new female character--and if it's the first Marvel film to really tank, they'll blame it on the female lead phenomenon.

Summary of last week's session:
 
(Brief minor retcon - I realized the Isle of Rhodes was several days out of their way, so instead they spend the night in port at Patras in SW Greece.)
 
Episode 2: Pirates of the Caribbean Mediterranean:
In Patras, you hear various rumors about odd storms, currents changing course, the occasional sea serpent, and so forth.
The journey from Patras to Constantinople is slower die to bad winds, tho a prayer from Edmondo abates them somewhat. A couple of days out, you are set upon by a galley of Muslim pirates from Egypt. There’s no chance you can outrun them with this wind, so you and Pironti’s crew make ready for battle. The two ships exchange arrows as they draw closer, and while your shooting is far more effective than the pirates’ it is not enough to drive them off and they close to board. Tyri, Geralt and Aeddan leap aboard the galley and fierce fighting ensues. Abida throws several alchemical concoctions that blind or disrupt the pirates, including a piece of mandrake root that turns into a simulacra that further distracts the pirates. Edmondo tends to the fallen. Finally, Thri eviscerates the enemy captain and the remaining pirates surrender. Half of you transfer to the galley and resume your voyage with both ships. Days later (10 days after leaving Patras) you sail into the port at the great city of Constantinople.

Gwen Stacy was the girl next door. MJ was the hot chick with a modeling career.

In a snowstorm?

I think the difference, for those examples, is that those were mostly plot changes, not changes in the characterization of a flagship character. Now, they did actually change the characterization of Bucky, but changing Bucky, who was gone for an extended period, is a lot different than changing Captain America, something they did change that actually stuck.
 
Superman, they've had very little success in adding compelling changes to that became canon.
 
Someone did make a great point about some comics where major characters had changes that stuck in the cases of comics like Flash and Wonder Woman because the comic previously had not been exactly vibrant in readership. I would say Miller's Daredevil is another example. Miller's Daredevil was really the first point in the comic where Daredevil became a character of his own, imo, and so it wasn't so much changes, as finally defined. And Miller's Bullseye, taking this kind of campy character and giving him real characterization, even if it was a psychotic hatred of Daredevil's mercy, made the whole thing more compelling.
 
This is sort of the advantage of a certain era, where there were some comics that had established branding of their main characters, but, because they had always been written for little kids(Flash is a good example), there had been less emphasis on writing and characterization, so there was room to move, as it were. That is less true now. Now, the characters who have never had strong writing are from the grimdark era, and it poses different problems for the writers, especially since everyone and their brother is a tough loner. I mean, how many years can Wolverine be an X-Man and claim to be a loner?
 
Actually, Wolverine is another good example of a character whose character doesn't really change. And the backstories they've added on to him don't help.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

Ironically, the fact that Superman could do practically anything he wants, but chooses to do what he believes is right only because it's right, is the thing I find most compelling about the character... who I have to admit has never much interested me, in any incarnation.
 
Most people seem to have forgotten that John Byrne's relaunch of Superman in 1986 was a significant redefinition of the character from his preceding form, and was in no small measure an attempt to eliminate some of the problematic elements in earlier depictions. His nigh-omnipotent power level was drastically reduced. More effort was taken to rationalize how his powers functioned. His Clark Kent identity became a serious, competent person rather than a klutzy joke. Superman's personal memories of Krypton were eliminated, making him much more a son of Earth than of Krypton. The "Superboy" phase of his life was erased. His relationship with Lois Lane was allowed to evolve. Clark's father was a living presence in his life. The nature and history of Krypton was majorly altered. But later writers kept chipping away at these changes, taking him back closer to what he had been, which IMHO has often not been for the better.
 
I would argue that for much of his history, Superman has been much less an agent of America than Captain America has been. Supes was raised with American ideals, but Cap was deliberately created by the American government as a symbol of the country. There have been few stories showing Superman acting on behalf of the government, but Cap worked for the American military initially, and has worked for SHIELD for more than one extended period. I believe that's why he's been shown going through phases of questioning his allegiance and what he truly stands for, when he's been disillusioned by the American authorities, like his classic Nomad story line. IMO the way he's been depicted in the MCU is very much within the spirit of his comic-book character arc.

You don't have to frame anyone for anything; you just get vague on the details. Dent was killed in the confusion and violence after the Joker's attack, the exact circumstances are unclear, evidence is contradictory, not enough to indict anyone, we may never know exactly what happened OH WELL we have plenty of other dead bodies that we can directly tie the Joker, the important thing is that Harvey Dent was a good man who fell victim to the violence and madness instigated by the Joker. And if anyone tries to imply maybe something else was going on, you go full-on outrage I can't believe you're trying to impugn the motives of this good man who gave his life to protect us harumpf harumpf... Simple lie of omission; it's actually a far simpler lie to sell than pinning it all on Batman for no damn reason. I mean this is Gotham FFS; GPD covers up worse shit than that on their slowest days. And while not exactly morally stellar, it's far less morally objectionable than the plan they actually went with.
 
The only reason for it was Nolan needed an excuse to retire Batman so he could come out of retirement ala Dark Knight Returns in the 3rd movie.
 
You mean apart from stating outright that Batman had no impact on crime, and apparently the only thing that was really needed to turn Gotham into a crime-free utopia was tougher sentencing laws? And that despite that, the citizens of Gotham would immediately overturn those laws [legal mechanism unclear] despite 8 years of proven success, just because it turns out the guy the bill was named for wasn't a saint?
 
And apart from how after 8 years of completely giving up on trying to make Gotham a better city as either Bruce or as Bats, how he suddenly decides to come out of retirement just because he hears some guy named Bane is in town - doesn't know anything about him, mind you, just his name - and does so with zero plan and only succeeds in distracting the police so that Bane can get away?
 
Yep, sounds like a Batman movie to me... [/sarcasm]
 
The first 15 minutes of DKR were when I realized just how much Nolan - and apparently everyone at WB - genuinely hates the concept of superheroes.

You don't have to frame anyone for anything; you just get vague on the details. Dent was killed in the confusion and violence after the Joker's attack, the exact circumstances are unclear, evidence is contradictory, not enough to indict anyone, we may never know exactly what happened OH WELL we have plenty of other dead bodies that we can directly tie the Joker, the important thing is that Harvey Dent was a good man who fell victim to the violence and madness instigated by the Joker. And if anyone tries to imply maybe something else was going on, you go full-on outrage I can't believe you're trying to impugn the motives of this good man who gave his life to protect us harumpf harumpf... Simple lie of omission; it's actually a far simpler lie to sell than pinning it all on Batman for no damn reason. I mean this is Gotham FFS; GPD covers up worse shit than that on their slowest days. And while not exactly morally stellar, it's far less morally objectionable than the plan they actually went with.
 
The only reason for it was Nolan needed an excuse to retire Batman so he could come out of retirement ala Dark Knight Returns in the 3rd movie.
 
You mean apart from stating outright that Batman had no impact on crime, and apparently the only thing that was really needed to turn Gotham into a crime-free utopia was tougher sentencing laws? And that despite that, the citizens of Gotham would immediately overturn those laws [legal mechanism unclear] despite 8 years of proven success, just because it turns out the guy the bill was named for wasn't a saint?
 
And apart from how after 8 years of completely giving up on trying to make Gotham a better city as either Bruce or as Bats, how he suddenly decides to come out of retirement just because he hears some guy named Bane is in town - doesn't know anything about him, mind you, just his name - and does so with zero plan and only succeeds in distracting the police so that Bane can get away?
 
Yep, sounds like a Batman movie to me... [/sarcasm]
 
The first 15 minutes of DKR were when I realized just how much Nolan - and apparently everyone at WB - genuinely hates the concept of superheroes.

"Those who are strong, protect the weak"

I absolutely agree. But then we must occasionally remind ourselves that superhero movies are not made for comic book fans. They're trying to pull in a broader general audience, and they obviously think that lighthearted "unrealistic" Silver Age stuff won't bring in $1B in ticket sales. [shrug] The studios spend more money on marketing research than I'll ever see in a lifetime, so I'm not in a position to tell them they're wrong.
 
Again. I personally agree. But subtext doesn't always sell as well, especially when subtitled for foreign markets.
 
I still have hope for the MCU. The fact that they made the very deliberate choice to tell Civil War primarily from Cap's perspective in Cap's movie speaks volumes. I think at the end of the saga, the moral is going to be something like "If you stick to your guns and do what's right, people will eventually come around." I can live with that.
 
Don't even get me started on that ending... [tl;dr - I agree with you]
 
I think Batman works well as grimdark. But he also works well as the slightly-darker contrast character in lighter stories like the animated Justice League. Heck, I even loved him as the straight man/adult supervision in the old Giffen Dematteis Justice League comics. ("One punch! One punch!!") Even Wonder Woman can occasionally get a little dark, as happens when you're fighting literal gods and so forth.
 
But Superman should never go dark. Even if the world around him goes dark - hell, especially then - that just makes him shine all the more brightly in contrast. Of course, that would require a filmmaker who isn't a Randian douchebag who thinks helping other people is for suckers.

I hear it just extends the CGI boss fight by 19 minutes. 
 
 
 Just kidding. I really have no idea. 

"They only lack the light to show the way."
 
That's what Zack Snyder and crew forgot. Superman is supposed to be that light. He doesn't act for public acceptance or ego gratification, but because it's the right thing to do. He demonstrates that power doesn't have to corrupt; that hope and compassion are stronger than fear and hatred; that the strong have a moral responsibility to protect the weak, not exploit them; that being more powerful than everyone else doesn't make you better than everyone else.
 
The irony is, Jor-El in Man of Steel tells his son practically the same thing as Jor-El in Superman, but along the way that message was lost. (I sometimes feel that Jor-El was the real Superman in MoS.)

I believe that the move to deconstruct comic books, beginning in the 1990s, was a necessary and ultimately beneficial trend for the genre. (Once you strip away most of the supers from that era with "death," "dark," or "blood" in their names.)   Examining who those characters are as people, why the storytelling conventions exist, and what the genre really says about society, led thoughtful writers like Peter David and Kurt Busiek to craft fresh stories which added depth to iconic superheroes without trashing everything that made them appealing in the first place.
 
But too many writers never moved past the instinct to tear the heroes down.

I find wish fulfillment to often become ugly without the need for deconstruction. That said, the darkness of Watchmen(the comic) was extremely well done and had a point. In the end, the grimdark of many comic book movies is more akin to Spawn(the comic or the movie), more about the style of the darkness, but empty of anything else.