The Adventures of Captain Otter

After the earlier article about the scariest villains, I thought a bit more about Venom.  Right now, there is a different Venom floating around.  He’s Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion.  He’s been an active member of the Thunderbolts, and is one of Osborn’s Dark Avengers.  I loved how Warren Ellis portrayed him as someone insecure with his status as a monster, and despite his fearsome (and cannibalistic) tendencies, he was almost afraid of the symbiote.  He’s now matured into a full blown villain, free of any possible moral restraints, and is devouring everythign coming his way.  But with this change, I find myself wanting something else.  Eddie Brock.

The former Venom host is very much alive, and is busting heads in a mini-series as Anti-Venom.  This is similar to his old Lethal Protector series, but with a bit more religious influence.  He’s alright, I guess.  The writing isn’t too stellar.  But no matter how well written this mini could be, I don’t think anything could top Venom as a villain.  He’s one of the best.  So I’m going to take a moment to think of how we can get back that experience, but in a natural way.

 The most obvious solution is to bring back Eddie himself as the main host.  I’m not a fan of this.  He’s had his character development, and has moved away from the darkness and villainy.  This was one of the most compelling parts of the character.  Despite all of his rage and hatred, he overcame that and is now trying to do good.  Of course, as a do gooder, he’s not quite as interesting.  Eddie probably should have died in some form of self sacrifice, to end on the highest possible note.  This is kind of what they did in the 90’s animated series, and I thought it was a great concept.  So, don’t bring back Eddie as “the” Venom.  Rather, I would say they might want to introduce a new host for Venom.  It doesn’t have to be a new character, just someone with a personal connection to Peter Parker.  Let Gargan go back to being the Scorpion after some kind of failure (ending of the Dark Reign would be nice timing), and introduce a new Venom more in line with Eddie’s vicious predator.  The last option is to see Mac Gargan deeply shamed by Spiderman in Dark Reign.  But this time, rather than lose the symbiote, he’s cut loose by Osborn and the higher ups, and goes on kind of a rampage.  I think either of the second two choices could work with a good writer, but alot of it depends on how Dark Reign ends.

This is part of why I now want to see a Venom movie.  Spiderman 3 left such a bitter after taste, where Venom was given a grand total of 5 seconds on camera.  And I never wanted to see a Lethal Protector movie.  But I do want to see the Eddie Brock we all know given proper treatment.  Even if we can’t get a classic Venom back in the comics right now, we could see a well done movie.  The movie could be awful, but I think it deserves a chance. 

What is it with all this movie news?  I was hoping to talk about all the stuff I’ve been reading, and the movie news just keeps coming.  Today we have info on Venom and the Green Hornet.  Let’s go with the good news first.  Green Hornet is well underway.  In fact, we have our very first photos!

Yes that is Seth Rogen as an action hero, looking rather swanky and uncharacteristically fit.  I suppose this is cool.  I don’t know all that much about the Green Hornet, so sorry if this doesn’t get me excited.  But with Rogen’s charm, I’m sure this will turn out to be an entertaining movie.  It comes out in December of next year, so the movie is right on track.

 And the bad news.  Venom has a writer.  Oscar nominee Gary Ross, who’s worked on movies like Pleasantville and Seabiscut, is rumored to be working on the script.  Wait, this is good news right?  The script is being written.  It’s bad because there are two guys who already finished a script and turned it in to Sony.  They were confident that their script would get the wheels turning.  They havn’t been mentioned, but if Sony is trying to get a new writer then the older script must have been less than stellar.  At best, Ross is coming in to help edit the current script.  At worse, a whole new project.  Sony just can’t seem to get writers down for their two big Spidey movies, and it’s getting me nervous.

Ross also might end up directing the movie.  I hope they give the movie the right feel, and don’t make it too much like a “dark spiderman”.  Venom is AT BEST an antihero, and even then he’s a pretty cruel one.  The movie should be dark and gritty, but with a slick sense of style and polish.  We don’t need excessive violence, but if Venom doesn’t threaten to at least one person then this movie will be a failure.

Spiderman has a long list of great villains.  The Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Shocker, Rhino, Venom.  But none of them make me quite as angry or infuriated as the Chameleon.  What’s to like about him?  I can safely admit that I despise the Chameleon.

Let me be a bit more clear.  The Chameleon is an amazing villain who’s stood the test of time.  Like almost every good Marvel character, he was created by Stan Lee and has been causing havoc ever since.  The Chameleon might be a half decent fighter, but he can’t compete physically with heroes like Spiderman or Captain America.  Instead, he makes their lives as annoying as possible.  In the current Spiderman arc, we see the Chameleon taking Peter’s place.  I had to put this last issue down five times before I could finish it.  It’s downright frustrating knowing that Peter’s social life is going to get even worse, and that the villain is destroying many of his relationships.  Compared to this, dropping Spidey in a vat of acid doesn’t seem so bad.

So, the Chameleon is a unique, and when written well, interesting villain who somehow manages to make Peter’s life even worse.  As much as I hate him for doing it, that’s the kind of response a good character should bring about.  Do I hate the Chameleon?  Yes.  And that’s why I love him.

If you don’t know who Bruce Campbell is, take a quick step back from your computer.  All set?  Good.  Now slap yourself in the face so hard you start seeing funny colors.  Now check out Campbell on wikipedia.

Campbell is an old pal of Sam Raimi’s, and the two have been tight ever since Evil Dead (which was awesome, by the way).  Campbell has had cameos in all three Spidey movies, and has done voice work in the games.  We’ve always known he would show up in Spiderman 4, but it might be more than just a cameo.  The actor recently said that he would have a much bigger role this time around.  Some people think he might get the role of a villain like Mysterio, but I see him as more of strong supporting character.  Someone who works at the Bugle or something.  Either way, more Bruce Campbell means a better movie.

If you want more Bruce Campbell, you can also check him out on USA’s Burn Notice.  The show is about an ex-CIA agent trying to clear his name.  Bruce Campbell has an amazing character, and his scenes alone are almost worth watching it.  Spiderman 4 will hit theaters next May, so mark your calenders.  It looks like this movie is actually going to get made, and should start shooting in January.

Yesterday I talked about how the idea of Spiderman being in 3 more movies just won’t work.  Just to see if the older movies stood the test of time (since 5 years is just so long), I watched Spiderman 2 for the first time in a while.  I remembered liking this movie, but then again that was a while ago.  Looking back, it’s still one of the best comic book movies so far.  Doc Ock is a great villain, and they drove home the central idea of Spiderman trying to live a double life. 

So what worked in the movie?  I still think Alfred Molina is a great Doc Ock.  He wasn’t as perfect or irreplaceable as the Heath Ledger’s Joker, and they did change around his origins to make him a bit more sympathetic.  Still, you cared about the character.  Between Molina’s charm and a solid script, he came off as a well rounded villain.  You knew he was bad, and he did come close to killing thousands and thousands of people.  You also see his noble pursuit of science taken to a bizzare extreme, and when he finally redeems himself, everything comes full circle.  The script was also filled with plenty of downright touching moments.  Aunt May’s speech about how all of us need a hero, all of the stuff at the end between Peter and MJ, all of it was powerful stuff.  And Spidey stopping the train?  Come on, you have to admit that was awesome.  If you havn’t seen the movie in a while, I suggest going back and checking out these scenes.  If Iron Man was missing anything, it was the occasional touching moment the likes of which Spiderman 2 thrives on.  Even the campy stuff when Peter gives up his power while the “raindrops keep falling on my head” song was playing in the background was charming, and fit Peter Parker well.

So Spiderman 2 was great.  And like I do in all my reviews, I start talking about the stuff I didn’t like.  There’s a reason Spiderman is one of the most popular characters of all time.  One of the better parts of the character is his sense of humor.  No matter how hard you try and bring down Peter Parker, he keeps on going.  His humor is a part of that.  Sure, in the hands of a bad writer this comes off as annoying and childish.  Just the same, with a good writer, it gives the character a lighter feel, even when things get heavy.  All of the movies missed this.  Part of this is the script.  Spidey isn’t given too many funny lines or comebacks.  It’s possible they thought that his wit undermined a view of Spidey as a more stoic figure.  They’ve done stranger things.  The big part, though, is Tobey Maguire.  The guy always looks so sad, like someone shot his puppy.  I don’t think he’s a bad actor, I just think he was the wrong guy for the part.  The few comebacks and jokes he does make don’t actually sound like jokes.  Seriously!  Pay attention to the lines which are supposed to be jokes.  Also pay attention to the fact that you arn’t laughing while he’s saying them.  The movie can be funny, but Tobey Maguire isn’t.  He comes off as kind of forgetable compared to Hugh Jackman as Wolverine or Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark.  The reason Iron Man rocked was mostly because of how cool Stark was, and this summer’s Wolverine movie was saved by Hugh Jackman’s charisma.  If the Spiderman movies had an actor with that kind of personality and driving force, then the second movie would be close to perfect.

Generally speaking, most of the superhero movies tend to come in trilogies.  There might be spin-offs, like in the X-men movies, but if a superhero gets a successful first movie then chances are they go for two more.  This makes sense.  The first movie introduces the character and his problems, the second usually tells a great story, and the third tries to wrap things up.  The only problem is we haven’t seen a movie trilogy end on a good note.  Xmen 3 wasn’t anywhere near as good as X2, and Spiderman 3 still goes down as a big disappointment.  I think so at least.  I mean, an emo Peter Parker dancing?  I actually left the theater to take a break.  And don’t get me started on having Venom in the movie for a total of five minutes.  Again, it’s not even that the movie was abysmal; it’s that the second was just so much better.  Still, Spidey isn’t done, and it’s already confirmed that Spiderman 4 is coming out in 2011. 

But wait, there’s more!

The writer for Spiderman 4 is also signed on to do a fifth AND sixth installment.  Now, I don’t know exactly what has been going on with the writers so far, and they’ve been switched on and off more than once.  That alone isn’t the best sign.  Anyway, I’m not even going to bother worrying about that.  I am going to start worrying about everything else with the movie.  The first (and biggest) question is the choice of villain.  A good villain isn’t just someone who’s cool, but one who can also be part of a good story.  Spiderman has a great rogues gallery, and the three that stand out as his biggest foes are the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, and Venom.  They’re all used up, so now the movie has to start using some of the slightly lesser villains.  The ones that come to mind are the Lizard, Electro, and Kraven.  Carnage just won’t fly (swing?), and is way too dark for a Spiderman movie.  The Lizard has already been set up, but can’t work by himself.  The Lizard can’t work alone because he’s…. a lizard.  His motives are pretty simple and he can’t exactly concoct a good scheme.  Kraven would work great alongside the character, since the Russian hunter has manipulated the scaly alter-ego of Dr. Connors before.  So that’s one movie.  Electro, with a proper costume design, could work.  I don’t know what the story would be, but it has a chance.  Most of Spidey’s other villains are common criminals that won’t work on stage for two hours.  I’m sure they can do some cool things with Mysterio with all his illusions, but I doubt the guy could really survive more than one punch from Spidey.  Same for the Vulture.  They could start working for a movie with the Sinister 6, which could make things interesting I guess.  Then again, Spiderman 3 struggled with 3 villains.  Do you really want them to try and handle 6?  Or even worse, see them try to use this guy in the movie?

Sadly, this isn’t the least of Spidey’s problems.  In the comics, Peter Parker goes years as a high school and college student.  The magic of comic books is that you can always make the character look young.  This gets tricky when your actor starts turning 40.  By the time we get to Spiderman 6, Tobey Maguire is going to start looking old.  For the most part, I’m not sure how many more stories this franchise has left.  I don’t know how many more times Peter and Mary Jane can break up and get back together, and if think there is only so much more they can do with the pair.  And if they even consider giving Spiderman a kid I won’t even see the movie.  I guess the biggest problem is that I’m not excited about more Spiderman.  I think they can make Spiderman 4 a solid conclusion to the franchise, and let that end it.  If they make a 5th and 6th movie, it will just feel like they’re milking the character.  Even if this writer is on board for two more scripts, I’ll be shocked if they actually go through with it.

So with Spiderman in such a weird position, it’s time to look to better news.  Speaking of trilogies, it looks like Christopher Nolan might be on board for Batman 3!  Rumor has it that he’s leaving development on a movie called The Prisoner to work on the (hopefully) final Batman installment.  If this comes out in 2012, then this will be the third character that makes it to 3 movies.  I think Bats has it in him to stop the three-quel curse, and I have a feeling that Warners is going to be smart enough to let him take his time and not pressure him with ideas.  Studio pressure hurt X3 and Spidey 3 alot, and I don’t think we’ll see any of that.  Even if this is Batman’s last solo adventure, I do expect to see him in the Justice League.  This would be an entirely different Batman that’s more in line with the rest of the league.  Although it’s not confirmed, the idea of Nolan finishing up a Batman trilogy is something fans need to see.

I’ve got a quick update that I wanted to fill you guys in on, mainly so I could use this title.  Marvel is going to start experimenting with foil covers again, starting with Ultimate Avengers, Armor Wars, and Spiderman.  Its hard to say where this might go, but it looks like they want to test it out first.

Now, when you ask me what a foil is, I immediately think of trading cards.  A foil meant something was special, so Charizard had a foil card.  I had no idea it applied to comics, but then again I missed most of the stuff from the 90s.  From the little I’ve read online, it looks like foils got way out of hand to the point where they became meaningless.  My gut reaction was that foils sound stupid on comics.  Making an entire cover shiny might look a bit too gimicky and could detract from the actual artwork.  After thinking about it, I can see some clever artist using foil selectively to highlight certain elements of a cover.  So, I’m going to say that foils should only be used at the discretion of the cover artist.  If we start see foils on every “special issue”, I think it will start to look too flashy for its own good.

 Alright, this doesn’t seem like enough info for one post……   I guess we should talk about the recent updates on Spiderman 4.  Another scirpt has been “foiled” (damn I’m good), and this makes the 3rd attempt on the project.  This scares me.  Whenever a project of any kind goes through too many rewrites and revisions, it doesn’t turn out right.  The recent Wolverine movie went through a bunch of revisions, and the final product wasn’t as good as it could have been.  The good news is that the new writer directed Seabiscut and Pleasantville, both of which were pretty good.  But wait, theres more bad news.  The rumors suggest that this might be an attempt for the writer to get better relations with Sony for future projects.  I’m never one to trust rumors like that, but this entire deal feels off.  Sam Raimi has alot of work to do if he wants to restore Spidey back to his former glory, and this just sounds like one more challenge.  It also sounds like we have to wait that much longer before we find out who the villain(s) will be, which just frustrates me even more.

Its been a little bit since I’ve heard news about comic books that really got me excited.  DC has been busy prepping for Blackest Night, but it doesn’t feel like they have anything else too big going on.  Marvel recently announced the return of Steve Rogers, which makes me more nervous than excited.  While there is plenty of stuff I look forward to, there wasn’t any recent news to get me pumped up.  Well, today Marvel released some news that did just that.

So far, Dark Reign has been all about how the heroes have reacted to Osborn’s regime.  With the exception of Iron Man, we don’t see too many heroes being hunted down.  In titles like the New or Mighy Avengers, the task is to bring down the empire but not escape it.  With the upcoming series called The List, and each issue will deal with a certain hero or team.  Norman is going to go after many Marvel big guys like Spiderman, Daredevil, the New Avengers, Secret Warriors, X men, and even the Hulk.  Its the inclusion of Daredevil and the Hulk that gets me excited.  The Hulk has had almost nothing to do with Dark Reign so far (or the rest of the Marvel U for that matter), and its about time he got some real action.  Osborn will be hurting one of Bruce’s friends, and Hulk is going to show the world whos the real green man in power.  But Osborn has some kind of gamma powered beast of his own, so Im actually curious as to how this plays out.  The inclusion of Daredevil is also a change of pace, since I cant remember the last time Matt Murdock had anything to do with an event.  Even in Civil War, it was Iron Fist wearing his costume.  Im not sure exactly why Osborn wants to take down Daredevil, but i can only imagine it has something to do with the Hood’s criminal syndicate.  All of the descriptions of the titles look pretty interesting, and Marvel has brought in a huge amount of talent to make this work.

So the List feels like the climax to Dark Reign, and also a great way to finish it off.  Dark Reign is a bit stagnant right now, so anything that can send it into high gear is going to be something differenbt.  I think the List will be the series fans have been waiting for in Dark Reign, and will make or break the event.  But even when the Dark Reign ends, something new is going to begin.   Marvel is of course tight lipped, but its going to flow naturally from Dark Reign.  Theyve said that Osborn has 9 targets, but there are 8 issues.  The 9th item on his list will be revealed later, and will lead into the next big thing.  What could this item be?  I origininally speculated that this would be Iron Man, who would turn the Dark Reign around.  But if this leads into the next event, I dont think so.  Who could be such a notable target?  Osborn doesn’t know about Steve Rogers coming back yet, so hes out.  Could Osborn be going after his own Cabal?  Maybe he has what he wants from them, and see the Cabal as a threat to his power.  I can’t think of any more targets, but the List has me guessing and waiting for whats coming out. 

Alot of fans are angry with Spiderman right now.  I don’t blame them.  Brand New Day isolated alot of readers who felt betrayed by what appeared to be a deus ex machina in the extreme.  Well, lucky me.  I wasnt reading the title at the time, so I couldn’t care less.  Ill talk about that some other time, because I wanted to throw up a quick post about the current arc.  Its called American Son, and its pretty nifty so far.

Even though the art leaves something to be desired, the dialogue and plot is top notch.  Its a fantastic read, even if it feels a bit sudden.  For some reason, Pete realizes that Osborn is getting on his nerves.  Dark Reign has been going on for 5 or 6 months and spiderman just now realizes he has to do something.  But hes kicked things into full gear and has taken the fight to the enemy, even if that enemy is the Dark Avengers.  If the New Avengers as a team are nervous about the Dark Avengers, what chance does Spidey have?  How can he handle such powerhouses like the Sentry and Ares?  This isn’t even the scariest thing in Spidey’s life.  His greatest nemesis, J. Jonah Jameson, is about to become his brother.  Suddenly Ares doesnt look so scary compared to this.

 But we also have some great stuff happening with Harry, who is standing out more than any other character.  Weve seen him grow for the first time in a while, and Im loving it.  Norman wants him to have a part in the team as (you guessed it), the American Son.  Norman realizes he can’t be Captain America, since he represents the strength of the nation but not its spirit.  Harry will take that role, and be a full blown Avenger.  Harry has other ideas, but well have to see whats in store for the webslinger and his friends.  And if Harry is the American Son, wouldnt that make Norman the American Dad?

See?  There was a reason for the title of this post.