Marvel Announces Eternals Film

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So, let’s talk about The Eternals.  These folks are, allegedly, going to be Marvel’s next big thing going into phase 4 and the 2020s.  I use the word “allegedly” there because I feel like we’ve definitely been here before and done the “next big thing” dance enough times for it to feel decidedly old hat by now.  In particular, we were last here in 2017 when Marvel spent 2 years and countless comics trying to make the Inhumans into their next big thing only for the property to completely flame out after ½ a season of subpar television.  

Even if you LIKED the Inhumans TV show there’s no denying the concentrated effort to rebrand the Inhumans as the new it thing from Marvel was both a failure and embarrassment, especially with how much they’ve receded from the public eye at this point.  One wonders if the Eternals, a very similar group conceptually, aren’t just Marvel’s new flavor of the month, to be forgotten within a few short years of their culmination? 

Sony Considering Nightwatch Film

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So, one of the developing superhero universe stories of the late 2010s has been that Sony is looking to continue their own movie-verse that’s adjacent to Marvel’s.  If you haven’t been obsessively following superhero copyright disputes and rights agreements, I’ll try and provide an abridged version.  Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man as well as his attendant mythos of characters but the box office failure of the Amazing Spider-Man films coupled with the North Korea hack eroded the studio’s confidence.  In the wake of dwindling returns, Sony elected to strike a shared custody agreement with Marvel Studios and Disney whereby Marvel would produce a new Spider-Man as part of their universe and Sony would get a share of the profits. 

However, the rest of the Spider-Man stable of characters would have their rights determined on a case-by-case basis, which means Sony can make movies out of those characters without sharing the profits with Marvel/Disney.  So far Sony’s confirmed they’re making a Venom movie with Tom Hardy and Gina Prince-Bythewood is on tap to direct a Black Cat & Silver Sable film.  Now the latest hero rumored to be added to that line-up is a bizarre blast from the past in the form of…Nightwatch. 

Panel Vision - 7 Things to Expect from Spider-Man: Homecoming 2

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So, did you see Spider-Man: Homecoming yet?  Chances are you probably did given the film’s had a big box office success, more or less everyone is praising it, and Marvel is more or less our culture’s cinematic guardian.  What’s more, it does feel like Marvel has poured a lot of time and effort into establishing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man as a new standard bearer for the company.  He’s not quite there yet, mainly because of how much he’s defined by his junior Avenger status, but give him about 3 years I get the sense Spider-Man is going to be one of the faces of the MCU come 2020 along with Black Panther and Captain Marvel.  

As such, and given that the film itself was loaded with references, it’s not too early to start talking about what we might see in a sequel to Homecoming.  Spider-Man’s always had one of the most expansive single character mythos in the entire Marvel brand and a lot of that has already started showing up in the MCU proper so let’s dive in to see what we might see in Spider-Man: Homecoming 2. 

Gina Prince-Bythewood to Direct Silver Sable/Black Cat Film

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As we move into the 2020s one of the significant emerging trends is the way that trends aren’t going away in any meaningful manner.  The decade is beginning to dwindle, and there’s no outward indication that audiences are going to lose interest in the broad multimedia franchises that have managed to stick- most pertinently superheroes.  Despite a thousand and one hit pieces about the impending death of the genre or superhero fatigue, the format has proved itself just too versatile to actually collapse in on itself.  However, just because a thing isn’t going away doesn’t mean it isn’t changing. 

As we begin to cap-off the defining multimedia stories of the 2010s the superhero genre is already evolving in new and different ways like Fox’s non-continuity approach to the X-Men or the CW’s functional TV Multiverse.  One of the biggest changes going forward is the beginnings of a demand for diversity with stuff like Black Panther, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman.  There’s a lot of reasons for this change, and I’ll end up getting into them more as we go, but this week it added another notch to its belt as Sony has tapped director Gina Prince-Bythewood to direct their planned Silver Sable/Black Cat movie as part of their Spider-Verse. 

Spider-Man: Homecoming Final Trailers Breakdown

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With around a month left to go, Spider-Man: Homecoming is revving up to be a superhero film this year.  I’m not trying to denigrate the movie, in fact as we go through this breakdown I hope it shows I’m somewhat excited for the film, I’m just being honest about where it stands.  In many ways, 2017 has been kind of a hard year on Marvel Studios overall.  There are certainly successes, I don’t think anybody thought Agents of SHIELD would pull off a fourth season as well as it has and Thor: Ragnarok has smash hit written all over it.  But during a year when Marvel is facing down Wonder Woman, Logan, and Justice League none of their adaptations really seem to matter as much, and Homecoming is a pretty solid example of this. 

The film will be the second reboot of Spider-Man this decade and the fourth Spider-Man over the past 10 years.  There’s something in that to the fatigue of franchise management and repetition, especially with a character like Spider-Man who tends to revert to the same role of “teen hero” every time his film series reverts back to square one.  However, credit where it’s due that Homecoming looks very good, it just looks a bit like there might’ve been a more important movie lurking in the original script.  What am I talking about, let’s dive into this latest trailer, and I’ll tell you. 

Tom Hardy Cast as Venom

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The age of franchising and shared universe has been one of severe disappointment and frustration among all the good stuff.  As much as I love Marvel Studios, the CW shared superhero universe, or the emerging Kaiju-verse of Godzilla and King Kong those make up the occasional rarities.  For every one of them, it feels like we’re buried in terrible DCEU installments, ill-conceived horror universe, and yet more incompetent misfires from the people at Sony.  

There has truly been no one more knee-capped by the demand for cinematic universes than Sony, mainly because they only have 1 brand under their belt that could be turned into a bigger universe and now that brand is co-owned by Marvel and Disney. 

Obviously, I’m talking about Spider-Man- the franchise that started the modern superhero fixation at the turn of the millennium.  Sony still remembers those days when Spider-Man made them enough money to buy the Rock of Gibraltar and have been trying to recapture that moment ever since, without realizing it’s their corporate meddling that drove the brand into the ground from #3 onwards.  

However, now that Sony has to share the profits of its new Spider-Man film with the folks at Marvel Sony is trying to branch out with unofficial spin-offs.  So far these have all languished in development hell, but now they’ve finally started to get their act together with the first such project: Venom, starring Tom Hardy. 

Panel Vision - History of Superhero Musicals

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Superheroes and the Musical genre have always made for somewhat strange bedfellows.  They’re both styles that emerged in popularity in the ‘60s, both depend heavily on colorful exaggerations of real life, and both are the domain of spectacle-driven popular culture more than the high art of theater or literature.  Despite those similarities and the way the verbosity and simplicity of the superhero would seem a natural fit for the world of the musical the two haven’t intersected as often as you might think. 

There’ve been some notable exceptions over the years, but the two just don’t combine nearly as often as they really ought to, given everything they have in common.  The two are set to combine once more in the upcoming Flash/Supergirl musical crossover episode, which will be the first major superhero musical in the past 5 years.  What previous musicals have there been?  What are the origins of this strange tradition?  Has it ever been done legitimately well?  All these questions and more will be answered in the history of superhero musicals. 

Comics Rainbow - Vampires

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Vampires; there’s a trend that really didn’t manage to survive the decade.  I’m not saying we don’t have vampire stories anymore, in fact, the upcoming release of the 5^th Underworld film is the entire reason I elected to dedicate this article to the subject.  But in a much more pointed way vampires just aren’t the cultural draw they were in that window of transition from 2007-2010.  

You can probably blame Twilight for that, as it both catalyzed vampires as a popular craze while also poisoning the well for all future vampire stories- hence why most of the Twilight imitators gravitated towards young adult fiction than vampires.  Still, the undead probably won’t be going away entirely given that they’ve been a staple of pop culture since Nosferatu, to the point they’ve thoroughly colonized comics as well as movies, TV, and books.  So let’s get the full spectrum on comic book vampires.

Cover Story - Top 10 More Christmas Covers

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Happy holidays and good tidings y’all, Lord knows we could all use some better days this year.  Yes, once again it tis the Christmas season and once again I’ll be diving into the deep well of Christmas comics.  I don’t actually celebrate Christmas myself but seeing as there’s a real dearth of Hanukkah comics to delve into I figured it’d be better to stick with Christmas.  

After all, the yuletide season is such an ingrained part of the yearly calendar it ends up forced into nearly every comic book at some point, and that can make for some pretty hilarious and horrible mismatched covers, as we’re about to see.  So let’s all get in the Christmas spirit for a bit with the top 10 MORE Christmas Comic Covers.

Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer Breakdown

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No character more embodies the state of Marvel Studios at this moment in time like Spider-Man does.  On the one hand, he’s a multi-billion dollar franchise and ranks among the likes of Batman and Superman as some of the most influential and well-known heroes on the planet.  I mean, lest we forget, Spider-Man has had 5 mega-budget solo movies, a ton of TV shows, and even appears in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade- he’s one of the few characters that acts as an ambassador of the entire genre of superheroes.

On the opposite hand, he hasn’t had a good solo movie since 2004 and his past 2 bombs were so explosive they threatened to drag the entire franchise down to the bottom of the sea.  What I’m saying is that Spider-Man occupies the unique space of being essentially a sure thing but with enough franchise dead weight to seem like a risky venture, which is the exact Venn diagram center point Marvel Studios thrives in.  And, with our first look at the new Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer, thriving looks be exactly what Marvel’s up to. 

Cover Story - Top 12 Luke Cage Covers

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So Luke Cage has finally premiered and become a pretty major deal.  The show is the final realization of a plan a decade in the making to shepherd G-list blaxploitation hero Luke Cage into the hearts and minds of popular culture.  Ever since his inception in the ‘70s Luke Cage has defined street level cool for Marvel, with his legend persisting through generations of creators and editors till it eventually rose him up to become an Avenger.  

Now, Luke Cage stands tall alongside Marvel’s greatest heroes as one of their premiere black heroes alongside the likes of Black Panther, Storm, and Blade.  What better way to celebrate such a momentous leap forward than with a look into the past and the Top 12 Luke Cage covers of all time.

Static Thoughts - Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

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As I write this, it’s the eve of Agents of SHIELD’s 4^th and possibly final season.  To celebrate, I’ve decided to look back on the first time SHIELD was ever adapted to the small screen; the 1998 made-for-TV movie Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, starring David Hasselhoff.  It’s easy to forget this now because of how much Marvel has transformed the cultural landscape but before 1999 virtually ALL of Marvel’s live action output was on TV.  This mainly came from a series of failed pilots in the ‘70s and the Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk show. 

However, after the success of 1989’s Batman and the 1990 Flash TV series Marvel made another go of it on TV, first forming a lucrative deal with Fox for animation (which is where the Spider-Man and X-Men show come from) and then pivoting into a pair of TV movie pilots.  This was the second, basically making it the last Marvel live action TV show before Agents of SHIELD, let’s dive in. 

6 Questions about New Warriors

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Edited by Robert Beach

Something peculiar about the story of Marvel Studios, the little comic book company that dreamed of making movies, is how well they’ve managed to wipe clean people’s memories of their failures. As far as the general public is concerned, Marvel has never failed, more or less cemented themselves as an unstoppable blockbuster juggernaut and America’s cinematic guardian. This takes a lot of mental editing when you take into account how often Marvel has let us down. And nowhere has that been more evident than in their many botched attempts at Network TV. 

After three seasons of diminishing viewership, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to bring in Ghost Rider to resurrect season 4. Their Most Wanted spin-off fell through, and most of Marvel’s “in the works” TV projects seemed to have stalled. This all got so bad that Marvel allegedly met with ABC about what their future in television held. It seems we now have our answer in the form of The New Warriors and also Squirrel Girl.

Cover Story - Top 10 NFL Super Pro Covers

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Sports and nerds, two simple concepts that have, for some reason, never really managed to come together.  By now I think we’ve all encountered the somewhat tired argument that nerds and sports have more in common than anyone would like to admit but it really bears repeating.  Sports are one of the only places in real life dominated by colorful costumes and iconography at all in line with the nerd palette and produces the same amount of fandom granularity and sense of defining identity.  

That was the crossover point Marvel comics was hoping to capitalize on in the ‘90s when they forced NFL Super Pro into the world.  NFL Super Pro was exactly what it says on the cover- a collaboration between Marvel Comics and the NFL to produce a football themed superhero, or rather I should say other football hero as their first attempt was called Kickers Inc., which I already covered.  Given that I’m a shameless hack willing to pander to Twitter hashtags, I’ve elected to honor NFL Super Pro with a look back at his top 10 comic covers. 

Panel Vision - is Tony Revolori Playing Nova?

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Edited by Robert Beach

As the various Spider-Man: Homecoming casting news continues to trickle in, one particular bit of casting has been niggling at me: Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson, Spider-Man’s best frenemy. It’ a relatively minor supporting role in the great scheme of Marvel casting. It's why you’ve most likely never registered Flash’s presence in the previous Spider-Man films even though he was on hand. He’s just not a dynamic character in the initial Spider-Man mythos as his primary role was wish fulfillment, acting as the bully jock to pick on Peter, but he worships Spider-Man. 

However, I don’t think that Tony Revolori fits anyone’s idea of a jock given he’s the same size and build as Tom Holland. At the same time, Flash Thompson isn’t that important to the Spider-Man mythos proper. Flash went on to be integral on a cosmic scale. All of which has led me to the following wild speculation: Tony Revolori is set-up to play Nova.

Tinkerer, Shocker, & Mary Jane Cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming

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Edited by Robert Beach

After weeks of actor announcements, we finally have a new casting announcement for 2017’s hotly anticipated Spider-Man: Homecoming. So far the film has assembled a murder’s row of talented actors, and that’s on top of the goodwill it’s built up from Spider-Man’s extended cameo in this year’s Captain America: Civil War. What’s more, Homecoming has consistently made headlines with their emphasis on color-blind casting and trying to make-up for Marvel’s stifling lack of diversity so far. 

For the first time, we’ve got a Marvel movie set in New York that tries to reflect the diverse make-up of that city rather than just a bunch of white people and their one black friend. Given that this casting news involves race bending a popular character, there’s been no small amount of Internet ire over it. Given this column is about speculation and analysis rather than character’s hair or skin color, I’ll just say everyone should just relax. Now let’s dive in. 

Spider-Man: Homecoming Casting Breakdown

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Edited by Robert Beach

For the past month and a half, we’ve been inundated with Spider-Man: Homecoming casting announcements. The film has turned into a massive who’s who of rising talent, and the amount of women and actors of color featured in the casting has been a major smart step for Marvel working to address growing concerns about their lack of diversity. The only off-putting thing about all these announcements is that they’ve been listing actors without characters. 

Now, we’ve got our first information about what heroes, villains, and supporting characters will be featured in Spider-Man: Homecoming. While not everyone is known (like Donald Glover or Hannibal Buress), we do have enough announcements to start forming a fairly accurate picture of the film to come. 

Film Land - Has Marvel Lost Faith in Dr. Strange?

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Edited by Robert Beach

At the time of writing, we are about three months out of from Marvel’s next film entry and possible first major failure Dr. Strange. I don’t make that failure claim lightly either. Despite being three months from release, this film has gotten shockingly little fanfare or production push, especially in comparison to other Marvel releases. This might be a response to the relative dead zone Marvel is releasing the movie in. 

Their previous November release was Thor: The Dark World, which was released against Hunger Games: Catching Fire and got completely crushed by it. With Dr. Strange, Marvel has set it up with no competition in a time of the year notoriously free of blockbusters, to the point where even bad movies like Spectre can make a killing. Even still, there’s a "specter" of doubt that hangs over Dr. Strange. I’m starting to wonder whether or not Marvel expects the film to be bad. 

Static Thoughts - History of Spider-Man TV Shows

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In case you’re unaware, today marks the fourth season finale of Marvel’s ongoing Ultimate Spider-Man animated series.  The show is one of four ongoing Marvel animated productions running through their Disney connection alongside Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Hulk & the Agents of SMASH, and Guardians of the Galaxy.  

The show has become pretty widely popular with kids, introducing a wide supporting cast of Marvel mainstays while also blending its elements with the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also featuring great comic shout outs, like the debut of fan favorite Miles Morales as played by Donald Glover.  We’ll see if it persists now that Marvel has an onscreen Spider-Man as well but for now, I figured we could celebrate with a look back at Spider-Man’s long, storied history on television as Marvel’s #1 franchise. 

How Civil War Will Impact Phase 3

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Edited by Robert Beach

We’re now less than a week out from San Diego Comic Con, the biggest week of the professional nerdist’s calendar as we all get to see the latest projects we get to meticulously obsesses over for the next year.  Ever since geek culture took over the mainstream the gem of SDCC has become the Marvel announcement.  Even though Marvel has taken to announcing a bit more at the Disney Expo recently everyone is still waiting with baited breath to see what news will emerge from them this year. 

I’ve already used this set-up to publish a bunch of spec pieces and this another one, addressing the big elephant in the room left over from May’s Captain America: Civil War.  At the end of that movie, spoilers, the Sokovia Accords mandating superheroes register with the government are still in effect, they aren’t overturned or anything.  That’s a pretty major change-up for the Marvel universe and is sure to have a major impact on future films, so I ask the question: how will Civil War shape Marvel’s Phase 3?