On Jun 3, 10:39 am, <[email protected]> wrote: > Alright. Alright. > > Van may disagree, but I think Marvel really built up Iron Man and Thor prior > to their movie debuts. Tony Stark (whether loved or reviled) was at the > heart of the best-selling Civil War. Thor's big comeback post-Civil War was > huge. Green Lantern has been built up with Blackest Night. > > In each of those cases, the comic company really tried to make that character > HUGE well in advance of the film. I was using that philosophy that DC should > try the same thing with Hawkman. >>>
The problem with Iron Man was that while Civil War *did* make Tony more visible with in the Marvel Universe, it was as a villain! The general consensus I was seeing during that time was that Iron Man had become the biggest villain in the MU. (We even have a chapter or three about that in Assembled 2.) Most of the talk within my circle of comics friends back then was about, "Will Marvel have time to *fix* all this damage to Tony before the movie comes out??" And the reason they'd want to do that was because of the perception that when a comics movie hits big, at least some people run to the comics shop to ask for that character's books-- and lo and behold, they would have discovered a much different Iron Man awaiting them there. (There may be evidence that this effect is a myth--that movies don't "move the needle," as Ravenface pointed out-- but there's lots of anecdotal evidence the other way; stories of people going into comics shops after the first X-Men movie, only to be hopelessly confused by the comics, because Marvel had been caught with nothing nice and simple to hand them fresh off seeing the movie.) The speed with which Marvel *undid* Tony's "villain-ness" was comical and ludicrous, and only speaks further to Marvel's rather panicked sense that they needed a "good guy" Iron Man that was way more like Robert Downey, after the movie became a hit. And nobody is insulting me by pointing out that Iron Man was "C-list" at best before the movie. I always say now that I was an Iron Man fan when Iron Man wasn't cool-- which was basically the thirty-one years I read his comics before the movie came out. It's been astonishing to me in a way, and not surprising to me at all in another, how quickly and utterly Marvel has disposed of so much of Tony's long-established history/backstory, powers, cast, and even personality in order to make the comics version as close to the movie version as possible. And it is extremely telling about the (lack of) popularity of the up-till-now comics version that hardly anyone has uttered a peep in objection. How I feel about it is a whole other conversation. But, honestly, nobody cares-- and I don't really blame them. ---Van -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Unique Geek" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/theuniquegeek?hl=en.
