Since I got Dungeon Siege 2 out of my system (summary: prettier, very dumbed down Diablo 2), and while the energy lasts, it seems you’ll get more blog entries from me. I don’t know why I bother, since my weblogs clearly indicate I get more traffic when I don’t write, and I’ll lose the rest of the audience with today’s topic: comic book movies.

Okay, it’s a geeky, nay, nerdy topic. However, my coworker Brian and I make attempts to go out and watch most comic book movies that come into the Cinerama, and X-Men and SpiderMan didn’t suck that badly, right? So just think of this as a movie discussion. Movies with lots of CG effects. See, it’s work related.

First, see previous thoughts. By the way, I am wiser now: yes, Spawn truly sucks. (On the other hand, I think Judge Dredd isn’t such a bad movie.)

Which gets us to today’s headline: “Marvel to Finance Up to 10 Films”. If you’re a moderate fan of comic book movies, like me, this could be good news - until you read the list of characters. Ant-Man gets his own movie? Black Panther?? For those of you who aren’t familiar with the characters involved, allow me to elucidate. By the way, nearly all of this was from memory, except for the roster of the Avengers, where I cheated. It’s alarming how many of my brain cells are devoted to storing this crap.

• Captain America: super soldier, created using experimental serum by the military, frozen in iceberg since WW2, is revived in current day to battle the Red Skull, a Nazi super criminal bent on world domination. Weapon of choice: indestructible shield made of vibranium (imaginary metal in the Marvel universe), painted red, white and blue, thrown like a discus. Annoying side kick named Bucky during the WW2 era who didn’t get frozen; Captain spends much time moping about this. Needless to say, costume is flag like (inexplicably, with superfluous wings near head which serve no functional purpose). Of all these movies, this has the most potential, but only if played for sheer ironic value.
• The Avengers: random collection of super heroes fight random super menaces. Roster has included Giant Man I, Giant Man II, Iron Man V, Iron Man IX, Demolition Man, Gorilla Man, Machine Man, Sandman, Swordsman, Swordsman II, Wonder Man. Oh wait, that’s the C list, not even the B list. So the movie’s roster should have one or more of Ant Man, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Iceman, Spiderman, the Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman.. er, wait, don’t they already have their own movies? I think that leaves Thor and, um.. Moon Knight.. okay, this should just be the Thor movie and we’ll leave it at that.
• Nick Fury: eyepatch wearing, cigar chomping military freak heads up S.H.I.E.L.D, secret government covert ops. I want to say that the enemy was C.O.B.R.A but I think that was some other cartoon series. Oh yeah, it was H.Y.D.R.A. Silly me. Nick Fury was most notably played by David Hasselhoff in recent history, and I can fully attest to how bad that was. Doesn’t that send up red flags of some sort?
• Black Panther: benevolent dictator of small landlocked African nation guards sacred vibranium (see above) mound against interloping foreign governments eager to build super weapons using vibranium. Super powers definitely didn’t involve turning into a giant cat as far as I recall. Suit was made of vibranium. Claws too. Did I mention the vibranium mound? Yep, this comic book character was all about international trade deficits in mineral resources.
• Ant-Man: scientist Hank Pym invents Pym particles which have size changing properties, and uses them to a) become the superhero known as the Ant-Man (whose super power was being ant sized with human strength. AND THAT’S IT. The talking to ants thing came from the helmet), b) shrink his wife into the superhero known as the Wasp, c) decide being ant sized isn’t all that and becomes the super hero known as Giant-Man, d) retires, e) comes out of retirement and becomes the giant-sized super hero known as Goliath, f) accidentally creates super criminal robot (Ultron?), g) accidentally becomes the super criminal known as the Yellow Jacket. I think there were some other episodes in his career that I’m missing but clearly this has movie plus sequel stamped all over it. Oh, and one of his arch nemeses was Egghead. Um, yeah. Would be even amusing if any part of the movie features a psychologist’s office.
• Cloak & Dagger: okay, so it’s the early 80s and Nancy Reagan needs to impress upon the youth of America that drugs are bad. Surely there had to be a better way than to have a pair of superheroes who got their powers through.. abuse of designer drugs. I think Cloak was the guy with the, uh, cloak and the dark powers, and the Dagger was the girl with the very large dagger-shaped cutout on her uniform who threw daggers made of light. Just in case you had trouble telling them apart.
• Dr. Strange: white man gets magic powers from Tibetan monk known as the Ancient One. Clearly this is a role Steven Seagal was born to play.
• Hawkeye: ex-carnie with questionable fashion sense wears purple uniform, carries bow and arrow to defeat enemies. No super powers. Basically Marvel’s answer to the Green Arrow, but the Purple Arrow just didn’t sound heroic enough, I guess.
• Power Pack: some pack of superkids; vaguely recall one of their superpowers was turning into a rainbow. (Again. I’m not kidding.) I believe this was for the under-8 set. All this from reading a tattered copy of issue #1 in a dentist’s office a very long time ago.
• Shang-Chi: okay, so I have to admit didn’t know who Shang-Chi is. Google search later: “Master of Kung Fu”? Nope, didn’t read that comic. Wow, I thought the only token Asian in the Marvel universe was, um.. ah, Jubilee! Had to think about that one for a long time. (Psylocke is currently Asian but she doesn’t count, because she was born white, and no, don’t ask; it doesn’t make sense to me either.) Somehow, it’s only fitting the only other noteworthy Asian is a martial arts expert, ’cause that’s all we’re good at, yo.

So yeah, it’s pretty much guaranteed - these movies will suck.