Monday Movie Roundup...3/27/2017

Morning Pepe.

I don't have a ton of time, so let's get to it:

 Logan is at $565.4 million worldwide. It's already the top Wolverine film. As for the rest of mutant-kind,

it surpassed X-Men: Apocalypse's $543.9 million. 

In terms of all Marvel-based films, it's 19th, right behind Iron Man. 

And, across the aisle, it's made more than Batman (1989), but less than Man of Steel.

Good Job!

Gotta go!

Have a good week!

There's a new Iron Man? (WTF? Friday...7/8/2016)

 Mornin' Joe. Hey - have you heard about this?

 Yeah

and not surprisingly, everyone's losing their collective s#!t.

W...T...F...?

I know...they should just calm the f**k down.

First of all, this is a temporary thing to generate media buzz...

...like that's never happened before.

Secondly, why can't someone else be Iron Man...Iron Person...whomever?

Like that's never happened before.

And finally, I wish Marvel followed in DC's footsteps a bit more.

Now now, hear me out.

There was a point in DC's convoluted timeline(s) where the JSA and JLA existed on the same Earth...just at different points in time (at least at one point in time). 

This allowed Jay, Barry and Wally to co-exist.

Alan Scott to be with the other Green Lanterns.

And Ted (Starman) Knight have his son Jack (among others...) become the next Starman.

This was DC's biggest contribution to comics: allowing other people to continue the legacy of a given character without diminishing the actions of the original character.

Marvel's biggest crutch has always been that their characters are their characters, and that's it. Peter will always be Spider-Man, Steve will always be Captain America...and Tony will always be Iron Man.

BUT WAIT...

What about A-Next? With May Parker as Spider-Girl? Shannon Carter as American Dream? Cassandra Lang as Stature? And about 20 other offspring/proteges taking over?

Someone may have been onto something...

My problem isn't with Tony being replaced as Iron Man. My problem is Marvel not keeping Tony being replaced as Iron Man. This is like "The Death of Superman" all over again. If a publishing company is gonna do something like this, commit. Go all in. And if they must bring Tony back, make him a totally different hero. But if sales don't improve, they'll just have Tony back as Iron Man and Riri Williams will become a member of the Iron Legionnaire or something.

Which would make me smack that button. Hard.

Change is good Marvel. Learn from DC and expand your universe.

Just not too much...

About these Netflix Marvel shows...

I'm a huge fan of both shows, and I look forward to the rest of them, but this new trend has me thinking:

Why don't the comics run the same way?

Why get bogged down with ongoing monthlies? Why not have ongoing mini-series instead? My understanding is that comic book publishers must feature a specific character within a certain time frame in order to keep the publishing rights for legal reasons, but that time frame isn't a mere 30 days. It isn't 90 days. In fact, I think it's somewhere in the 3-5 year range.

Regardless, I'd rather read a really good 7-month long story featuring Moon Knight (for example) than deal with five issues of less-than-spectacular "filler" crap in a monthly ongoing series. Having said that...

the same could be said for television shows.

Huh. I didn't know that. (WTF? Friday...1/8/2016)

Marvel - you sneaky, sneaky bastards.

 I knew that OHOTMU came out in 1983...

 ...and is Mark Gruenwald's greatest achievement by the way, yes I'm including Squadron Supreme...

...which in turn (Crisis on Infinite Earths aside) gave us DC's Who's Who.

But I thought that was all there was.

Turns out I was wrong. The origins date back to 1980. 

I know, I know, but follow me through here...

The Summer Olympics were in Moscow that year, and the U.S. boycotted.

Which created a lot of panic at the time (to companies like McDonald's which lost a lot of money), and a lot of jokes in the future (most notably on The Simpsons). But Marvel found themselves in a pickle...

...because Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions was a planned Olympic tie-in.

They made the necessary changes plot-wise, and after putting it on the back burner for a few years, Marvel published issue #1 in June, 1982. 

Still with me? Good.

When MSHCoC came out, it was hailed as a breakthrough comic for several reasons...

...it was the first time every super hero in a given company appeared in one story.

...it was the first Limited Series ever published (by Marvel at least).

...it laid the groundwork for 1984's Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.

All of which are true.

So what's the connection to 1983's OHOTMU?

Well at some point along the way, editors Tom DeFalco and Mark Gruenwald (who also co-wrote) and editor-in-chief Jim Shooter realized that not everyone who reads MSHCoC would know all the characters involved. So what did they do? They took two of the last three pages in each issue (6 pages total) and gave a brief description - nothing much, maybe a paragraph - of every character, their powers and first appearance.

Sound familiar?

Now, I have no idea how involved Mark was with all this, but he is absolutely and unquestionably credited as the mind behind OHOTMU. Since there is no doubt that its beginnings started here, I'm tipping my hat in his general direction. 

Cool, huh?

So...Bobby's gay now?

I clearly have no idea what Marvel is doing.

It sounds like Bobby Drake has come out of the closet...

Ramifications ensue.

Homosexuality in comics is an ongoing issue, and one that I hope continues to happen more and more. There's nowhere nearly enough LGBTQ representation in comics. Certainly not in Marvel and DC. 

 

Having long-term characters reveal their sexual orientation? Fine. 

But must Marvel use mutant characters? 

Stan Lee's creation of the X-Men allowed readers from all walks of life to relate to them. These were the "misfits" of society. These were the people treated unfairly by those in power. Every minority could relate to them: people of different ethnicities, religions...and sexual preferences. 

So why beat us all over the head by making another mutant character gay?

I remember Northstar.

His big revelation came when I was reading the series, and I thought it was about damn time. If you read the early John Byrne stuff it's obvious, and it bugged me that it took roughly 100 issues to bring him out.

Then there was Shatterstar...

...and Rictor.

This was after I stopped reading, but I remember the characters from when I was reading, and I thought "well, Marvel does need to bring more variety into their universe". 

This, unfortunately, feels like a grab for media attention.

It's not the fact that it's Bobby, a character going back to the Stan Lee era, that bothers me. It's because he's a mutant. I honestly don't know if there are any LGBTQ characters in the Marvel Universe that aren't mutants, and that's the problem. 

Revealing a non-mutant character would tell a better story - some established hero (or villain) who hasn't had to deal with being "different" their entire lives...learning to deal with being "different". Mutants are used to being hated, feared, distrusted, and alone. 

Why not have someone who's never gone through that, go through that?