I love comic books (not just superheroes comics) as I think they are just a wonderful medium for storytelling. That said, I have almost always hated comic book culture and the subsequent movies culture it has spawn. I'm sure this is the same for almost any other hobby, but I have particularly hated the consumer culture around of many superhero movie fans. I hate when consumption is a personality trait, and funny enough most comic nerds will try to dunk on Disney fans or weebs when all three are pretty much the same thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great writers and great stories that have something interesting to say in the books (especially books outside the big two, though you'll find a real banger here and there inside them too), but the movies tend to be creatively watered down a lot. I'm not THAT GUY, but I do feel that most of all the big films are just created for mass appeal, and it shows.
They disregard their decades long creative legacy and find the more mainstream/accessible components and use that. Many of the characters have a lot of unique stories that only fit well into their comic, but the films make them all seem utterly interchangeable. I would love to see more "cape shit" if they weren't all trying to be a giant interlinked franchise that all played by the same rules and very rigid creative boundaries. They need to make more "one-shots" (to use a comic book term), that's part of the reason I liked the "Birds of Prey" film, it was at least tried to do something different from every other modern superhero film, and in a way that highlighted the unique aspects of the characters in the film (I thought Ewen McGregor was great as Black Mask).
To use an analogy I heard a friend say on one of our video calls, It'd be like going to an amusement park that only has roller coasters. There lots of other super fun things to do at an amusement park other than go on the big "epic" roller coaster. Bumper cars, go-karts, mini-golf, laser tag, the Ferris Wheel, The hall of mirrors, the one where you shoot water into the ducks, etc. But because all of these films are all roller coasters, they all feel like they hit the same beats, but perhaps this roller coaster is wooden rather than steel, or this one has neon lights on it. You don't have any fundamentally different experience, so people argue which one is the fastest, or the most build-up, or how many loops it has. Which then becomes a weird arms race to build progressively same-y-ier roller coasters and worse yet limits the type of fun you can have at the amusement park. It's not the perfect analogy, but I think it gets the point across.
This is my take too. I loved Ragnarok for being basically the first MCU film to actually go full Walt Simonson and do some off-the-wall crazy bullshit for a change. Comics are inherently weird, lean into it and do some cool shit instead of "punch CGI bad guy really hard to stop the apocalypse from ravaging London/New York/Chicago/etc."
Also Winter Soldier is unironically a good film on its own, and easily the best Cap they've ever done.
I think the presentation is okay the animation can get a little clunky, the voice cast is superb, and I find the gore to a bit overdone. In that the shock value is diminished, the comic used that extreme violence to an almost cartoon/loony toon level but it was effective in that it was spaced put properly. BattleCat versus Thrang is my favorite example as the gore were more of visual expression of how extreme the two were willing to go rsther than just gore for gores sake. Overall i am happy to see more indie comics get some love (not that Kirkman comics aren't already pretty mainsteam). It gives me hope for comics like Chew, Outer Darkness, and or Paper Girls
I am not at all excited for the live action film, but Kirkman says he's been working on it since before the animated show. Personally I think Invincible's strengths were when it used ridiculous shit that could only be done in a comic book (or animated) which won't translate to the big screen well.
Oh my fuck I hate the shared universe bullshit. Like, sometimes the isolation is part of what makes a thing work. The best characters are inextricable from the limits of their setting god dammit! Characters should be more than aesthetics!
I love comic books (not just superheroes comics) as I think they are just a wonderful medium for storytelling. That said, I have almost always hated comic book culture and the subsequent movies culture it has spawn. I'm sure this is the same for almost any other hobby, but I have particularly hated the consumer culture around of many superhero movie fans. I hate when consumption is a personality trait, and funny enough most comic nerds will try to dunk on Disney fans or weebs when all three are pretty much the same thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great writers and great stories that have something interesting to say in the books (especially books outside the big two, though you'll find a real banger here and there inside them too), but the movies tend to be creatively watered down a lot. I'm not THAT GUY, but I do feel that most of all the big films are just created for mass appeal, and it shows.
They disregard their decades long creative legacy and find the more mainstream/accessible components and use that. Many of the characters have a lot of unique stories that only fit well into their comic, but the films make them all seem utterly interchangeable. I would love to see more "cape shit" if they weren't all trying to be a giant interlinked franchise that all played by the same rules and very rigid creative boundaries. They need to make more "one-shots" (to use a comic book term), that's part of the reason I liked the "Birds of Prey" film, it was at least tried to do something different from every other modern superhero film, and in a way that highlighted the unique aspects of the characters in the film (I thought Ewen McGregor was great as Black Mask).
To use an analogy I heard a friend say on one of our video calls, It'd be like going to an amusement park that only has roller coasters. There lots of other super fun things to do at an amusement park other than go on the big "epic" roller coaster. Bumper cars, go-karts, mini-golf, laser tag, the Ferris Wheel, The hall of mirrors, the one where you shoot water into the ducks, etc. But because all of these films are all roller coasters, they all feel like they hit the same beats, but perhaps this roller coaster is wooden rather than steel, or this one has neon lights on it. You don't have any fundamentally different experience, so people argue which one is the fastest, or the most build-up, or how many loops it has. Which then becomes a weird arms race to build progressively same-y-ier roller coasters and worse yet limits the type of fun you can have at the amusement park. It's not the perfect analogy, but I think it gets the point across.
This is my take too. I loved Ragnarok for being basically the first MCU film to actually go full Walt Simonson and do some off-the-wall crazy bullshit for a change. Comics are inherently weird, lean into it and do some cool shit instead of "punch CGI bad guy really hard to stop the apocalypse from ravaging London/New York/Chicago/etc."
Also Winter Soldier is unironically a good film on its own, and easily the best Cap they've ever done.
interesting, what do you think about Invincible?
I think the presentation is okay the animation can get a little clunky, the voice cast is superb, and I find the gore to a bit overdone. In that the shock value is diminished, the comic used that extreme violence to an almost cartoon/loony toon level but it was effective in that it was spaced put properly. BattleCat versus Thrang is my favorite example as the gore were more of visual expression of how extreme the two were willing to go rsther than just gore for gores sake. Overall i am happy to see more indie comics get some love (not that Kirkman comics aren't already pretty mainsteam). It gives me hope for comics like Chew, Outer Darkness, and or Paper Girls
I am not at all excited for the live action film, but Kirkman says he's been working on it since before the animated show. Personally I think Invincible's strengths were when it used ridiculous shit that could only be done in a comic book (or animated) which won't translate to the big screen well.
Agreed on all counts. The strength of comics and animation is that you can do just about anything, movies are limited by the tech.
Oh my fuck I hate the shared universe bullshit. Like, sometimes the isolation is part of what makes a thing work. The best characters are inextricable from the limits of their setting god dammit! Characters should be more than aesthetics!