With one of their team missing, another wounded and their base in ruins, the heroic Outlanders are at their lowest ebb when they are sent to explore the mysterious Dragon City that has sprung up on the banks of the Euphrates River. Within its walls, they discover the template to a pantheon of reborn gods of evil — gearing up for the approaching God War.
This volume of the modern-day pulp sci-fi series is written by Rik Hoskin and can be read as a stand-alone as well as developing themes that have been building over the past few books.
About the author: Writing as “James Axler”, Rik Hoskin has been the primary author of the Outlanders series since 2008 as well as contributing several volumes to James Axler’s Deathlands. His fourth Outlanders book, Infinity Breach, paid homage to the 1930s pulp heroes while blurring the barrier between fiction and reality. Beyond his Outlanders books, Hoskin is a comic book author who’s written Superman for DC Comics and helped develop a successful Spider-Man series for Marvel Comics’ European licensor, Panini, among others. He currently writes for Star Wars: The Clone Wars Comic as well as several younger readers titles.
We each saw The Avengers at fan-filled midnight screenings, separately but equally. We tried to avoid any spoilers here, but we can’t guarantee we hit that mark. And, being who we are, there are a couple of teasers in this dialog.
MIKE: Did you see it in 2-D, 3-D, or IMAX?
GLENN: 3-D.
MIKE: Me too. This was the first movie ever that I can recommend in 3-D.
GLENN: Which is amazing, considering it was upsampled to 3-D. The film was converted to 3-D during post-production for the theatrical release. But it certainly paid off.
MIKE: The 3-D imaging credits were as long as the Manhattan phone book.
GLENN: Someone asked me point blank if The Avengers is the greatest superhero movie of all time. I said I don’t know about that, it has some very tough competition. But hands down, it’s the greatest superhero battle movie of all time. Act Three in particular is just completely packed with the loving destruction of the New York skyline, and in 3-D it’s incredibly staggering. It’s also fast and fun, as compared to the smashing of Chicago in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon… that just felt drawn out and more akin to a disaster movie. Here, it’s battle, action, and a much better feeling of scope and scale.
MIKE: Yes. It was a real superhero battle in the classic Marvel sense: everybody fights each other then gets together to fight the bad guys. And I’ll never be able to look at Grand Central Terminal the same way again.
GLENN: Or the Pan-Am building. Or 387 Park Avenue South, or Marvel’s address on 40th Street. All of that and they didn’t blow up any of DC’s offices. Have we reached detente?
MIKE: Well, they blew up CBS’s first teevee studios. Which is funny, as this was a Paramount movie.
GLENN: Not really a Paramount movie, Disney bought ‘em out but they had to keep the logo on.
MIKE: And, of course, Paramount got a truckload of money and, I’ll bet, a piece.
GLENN: Exactly.
MIKE: Did you notice they hardly ever referred to anybody by their superhero name – other than The Hulk, who is obviously different from Banner, and Thor, who is, obviously, Thor.
GLENN: I think everybody got name-checked at least once.
Seriously, it happened so slowly, I never saw it coming. It’s long been a fact: Marc Alan Fishman is a card carrying member of the DC Nation. But then, something changed. Flashpoint was one epic-crossover-super-event-that-changed-everything too many. With the New 52, I’d made a steadfast rule: In order to conserve money and my sanity, any book that delivered two issues in a row that left me bored or was just terrible I would remove from my pull list.
Like every red-blooded nerd worth his salt, when a book is dropped from my box, I can’t help but seek to replace it with something new. And now that I look across the board, Marvel is now on equal footing, book-for-book with my pull list for DC.
More important, every Marvel book on that list is one that when I see it on the shelf, I get truly excited. Truth be told, I get Blue Beetle, Batgirl, Justice League Dark, Green Lantern Corps, and Resurrection Man – and they are good comics, but none of them excite me anymore. I’m slowly coming to terms with it; New 52 be damned… Make Mine Marvel.
Simply put, right now Marvel is putting out better books than DC. I welcome the flame war and argument from the interwebs. Based solely on the Marvel books I’ve read in the last three-four months, DC pales in comparison in story depth, quality, scope, and clarity. A few examples, you ask?
Take the Fantastic Four. Jonathan Hickman’s run on the title has been compared to Kirby and Lee’s initial run; and said with sincerity. His “War of the Four Cities” multi-year arc was as epic as any DC “Crisis” without the multitude of mini-series. While it did spawn a second book, FF, the grandeur has been well contained. Even better, FF brings the ideology of the family and creates an excuse to explore more of the Baxter Building collective without over-saturation. It’s a riff, not a rip-off. Compare this to the four Green Lantern titles being pumped out at DC and you can see how a little consolidation can really tighten up a title’s overall quality.
How about the newly relaunched Defenders? Matt Fraction’s “vacation” title is a glorious send up to an old and mostly forgotten secondary team… dusted off, polished up, and presented wonderfully in the modern age. While only five issues in, I’ve been nothing but impressed up until now. In fact, Defenders #4 easily tops my list of best comics I’ve read for the year. The year is early, yes, but amongst dozens and dozens of issues, I’ve little doubt it won’t falter from my top ten by years end. It’s a comic not afraid to be written with a smirk… that knows when to be deadly serious, or just go for the nut shot. Something Justice League International tried to do, and fell on its face for attempting.
For those following my reviews on Michael Davis World, you’ll no doubt also note my recent jaunt into Spider-Land with the Amazing Spider-Man title. With the promise of the “Ends of the Earth” storyline being a good jumping on point for new readers, I dove into a title and character I’ve always wanted to read, but never did because of the bad mojo that came with the book. Ask anyone about Spider-Man’s most recent bullet points and I doubt you’ll see a face light up when discussing One More Day, the Other, or even Spider-Island. That being said, the series thus far has been a joyous romp. A Saturday morning cartoon concept with a hidden maturity, that has a perfect balance of comic-book-quirk with well thought out plot development.
And over in Invincible Iron Man? Well, Matt Fraction is proving what a truly potent writer he is by shaking off the grime of the horrendous Fear Itself crossover crud and taking his baby book back to form. His long-winding plot of Mandarin’s careful and calculated destruction of Tony Stark has been a slow burn that’s been a long time coming. And when everything recently came to a head, we got a moment in comics I’ve dreamed of reading since I finished The Watchmen – an arc where the hero loses because he’s been out-matched. It was bold, ballsy, and has me chomping at the bit for more.
All this, and I’ve not even mentioned Daredevil or Ultimate Spider-Man. I’d love to, but well… I’ve not read them yet. But they are high on the list for me to catch up on, the second the next DC book takes a dive in my box. Resurrection Man? I’m looking at you.
Now, of course, Marvel isn’t perfect. Just a few weeks back on my podcast, a lifelong X-Men fan told me he’d literally given on comics all together because of the terrible decline of his favorite mutants. And let’s give credit where credit is due: Fraction and Hickman’s bold pacing is very much in-step with Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison’s work on Green Lantern and Batman over the last 60 or so issues. Anyone who read “Batman R.I.P.” can see what “The War of the Four Cities” or most of the run on Invincible Iron Man is being inspired by (not directly mind you… but certainly in conceptual scope). And DC is not without its own amazing titles. Action Comics, Batman, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Green Lantern always float to the top of my reading pile when I pick them up.
This of course leads me to ask the bigger questions. Was the New 52 not powerful enough overall to keep me from being lured away? Is Marvel just in a great rhythm right now? Will X-Men vs. Avengers cause some major crisis to interrupt all the goodness coming out in their top titles? Or with the second wave of new books (Dial H and JSA are both looking mighty fine to me…) hitting shelves soon, will DC reclaim me?
As a child growing up, I loved cartoons. At that time (the 1950s and early 1960s), that’s a bit like saying that I loved breathing. There were cartoons on Saturday morning, and cartoons every afternoon. The movie theater near my Grandmother’s house had Saturday matinees that were three hours of cartoons.
But I loved comic books more.
My husband, John Tebbel, was the first animation maven I ever met. He not only knew the difference between Disney and Warner Brothers, but he knew the individual directors, and quickly taught me how to spot Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson. He explained who the Fleischer Studio was and why I should care.
We went to animation festivals in Ottawa, Canada and Annecy, France. I saw films by George Dunning that weren’t Yellow Submarine. I met Bill Scott and June Foray. We would go to the Jay Ward store when we were in Los Angeles.
Naturally, I tried to share my love of comic books. My success rate was lower. He liked Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. He loved Kyle Baker. Milk and Cheese made him laugh out loud. Still, he never quite got the superhero thing.
I’m not writing to celebrate two geeks in love. I’m writing about how sometimes, we let our differences divide us. Do you like Marvel or DC? The Big Two or independents? Broadcast or cable?
We defined our affection for two art forms that were graphic storytelling. One moved and one didn’t. One had finite time limits and one didn’t. Each of us, with our affection for our chosen art, could appreciate the other’s favorite.
I would like our political discourse to work at this level, but that isn’t going to happen as long as there is so much money and power involved. However, if there is anything that would make my husband’s life more significant, it would be if we could each of us share our love for pop culture with the rest of the world. Instead of fighting over which piece of the pie is the biggest or the best, we could have more pie.
All of a sudden I find myself in the midst of a half-dozen publishing projects. All are comics, and all but one are comics stories.
Here’s the rub: I’m dying to tell you about them. Really. I’d kill to tell you about them. But I can’t. I’m not the publisher, I’m not the artist, I’m not the writer of most of them, and I’m not the publicist. So it’s not my place to blab. I’m the editor, the dealmaker, and in at least one case the conceptualizer. So you’d think my ego, which even I call The Hulk, could handle a bit of a wait.
Well, no. That’s why I call my ego The Hulk. That’s why, when Jack Kirby came up with an entire living planet named Ego (Thor #132, cover-dated September 1966), I identified like crazy.
There’s another reason. These deals haven’t been papered yet. “Papered” is high-falutin’ dealmaker speak for “signed contract” or “signed letter of agreement,” which are the same thing. Anyway, any or all of them can still collapse. That happens all the time.
So my ego is so big I’m telling you these deals are happening even though they haven’t been papered yet. Of course, having a signed deal is no guarantee that a project will ever start, let alone be released. If you took all the development proposals, all the unreleased master tapes both audio and video, all the edited film footage and laid ‘em all end to end, it would stretch from the San Diego convention center all the way to Ego The Living Planet.
So you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit excited. I’ll be working with friends old and new, including at least seven folks who are currently involved with ComicMix. There is no greater pleasure (with my clothes on) than doing creative work with good friends. People whose talent I can count on and the readers enjoy. People whose work habits are compatible with mine and vice versa. People I can call at 2 AM if they’re late on a deadline.
True story. Back when I was working at DC Comics in New York, I made an emergency trip to Chicago to be there for my father during his surgery. Of course there was nothing I could do during the surgery itself, but I was a ten-minute drive away from a freelancer who was almost a month late on a deadline. I borrowed my father’s car – hell, he wasn’t using it – and drove to said freelancer’s apartment. He wasn’t home, so I bribed the building superintendent into letting me in. I took a sheet of art board and scrawled in red marker “HEY! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU! YOU’RE LATE! I BETTER HAVE THE PAGES ON MY DESK BY MONDAY! Love, Mike Gold.” I taped it to his drawing table and then I returned to the hospital, stopping only for an Italian beef sandwich. Yes, I had those pages on my desk by Monday.
So pay attention and you’ll hear about all this stuff. I hope. Actually, we teased a couple of them at the C2E2 convention last week, so if you were there you can easily connect some of the dots. And I should be in San Diego annoying the masses with all this as well.
Huckstering is an intrinsic part of our popular culture. But I pride myself in my inherently total lack of common sense to promote nothing by name… and to do so months in advance.
Please read the past three week’s installments before reading this. Thanks!
What has gone before, quick and dirty recap… I’d sold (in my opinion) the second greatest idea in the history of comics to one of the greatest publishers (DC Comics) in the business. It was to be written by one of the greatest writers (Dwayne McDuffie) with art by a guy (me) who was going to make sure this time he got it right. The editor assigned to it wanted me off the project I created. Dwayne told the editor he would not do the project without me.
I told the editor to kiss my ass (at a bar during the San Diego Comic Con some years after all this went down and after Jenette Kahn had left DC). See previous installments as to why I didn’t tell him to kiss my ass while Jenette was there.
What did the editor say?
Nothing. When’s the last time you’re heard a pussy talk? Me? Last Friday but that was …well … you know…
I took the project to Dark Horse.
Mike Richardson loved it…
Mike Richardson runs what is without a doubt the coolest entertainment company in the world in my opinion. Dark Horse does movies, comics, television, animation, toys, collectables and just about any other cool pop culture stuff you can think of.
Mike is not just the founder, owner and CEO, he is also the driving creative force behind Dark Horse. Having a project at Dark Horse is not just cool, its prestigious as well.
Sin City, Hellboy, The Mask, 300 are among the Dark Horse comic projects that have gone on to be come huge movies and merchandising juggernauts. If any project has a chance of becoming something beyond comics, having Dark Horse as your publisher helps tremendously.
Mike gave me my marching orders, which were to come back with a detailed outline of the story, and I did. I came back over and over for five years.
Yep. Five years.
Or 35 years in the DC editor’s life. Why 35 years? Because he was and still is a little bitch.
But (sorry again, Peter) I digress…
Allow me to make another aside to the young creators out there. I have two mottos that I live by…
There is nothing too good to do for my friends, nothing too bad to do to my enemies.
And…
A deal takes the time that a deal takes.
Just to be clear, Mike Richardson and I did not meet every week or so for five years. We met numerous times to go over the story but there were times when we would meet in April and the next time it would be in May.
May of the next year.
When you are dealing with the head of an A-list entertainment company you have to realize that they have a lot of other stuff to do. Often Mike would be out of town, way out of town like in Prague filming Hellboy or in Japan working on a toy deal or in San Diego at Comic Con where he stabbed me through my heart…long story.
Before your mind goes to dark places, he stole a toy out from under me at a vendor during Comic Con. That’s how he stabbed me in the heart…and he never called.
So young creator: remember a deal takes the time that it takes. If you think countless phone calls and emails are going to make a difference, you are right.
Countless phone calls and emails will make a difference. The difference it will most likely make is you will phone call and email yourself out of a deal. Nobody likes a pest.
I know that first hand. Ask Halle Berry.
We went back and forth on the story until Mike called me one afternoon and said; “Let’s get rid of the superhero element.”
That’s what Mike had been struggling with during my many revisions to the story.
The story was a superhero story that dealt with a certain time in American history. Mike realized all at once that the history was more important than the superheroes.
This under any other circumstances would have been a deal killer for me. That was not the idea that Keith Giffen said was one of the greatest ideas he had ever seen. This was no longer my dream project.
But…
It was a great project and more importantly it was a story that needed to be told.
Mike was right.
Soon after we had that talk I turned in my new story overview and Mike said “Go do the book.”
That was three years ago.
I’ve been working on that graphic novel for three years. The comic book work I’ve done in the past has been me trying to do comics the way others do comics. I’m not that type of artist and I’m not making that mistake again. Graphic novels are done in as many styles as there are artists and I’m not taking any chances that I’m not true to how I work and how I work is a bit involved and tedious.
My pen and ink style is a wee bit time consuming.
I’m including examples of the Dark Horse project with this article. Mike Richardson has not even seen this work yet. I’m not showing any story pages, as I’d like to keep the story under wraps for a bit more time.
As I hope you can see from the art, the work is a bit time intensive. All of the originals are 20 x 30 inches, double or single page spreads.
But just as a deal takes the time that it takes a good artist takes the time that he or she needs to do the work to the best of their abilities.
That being said-my project at Dark Horse has an opened ended deadline, meaning I have the luxury of turning the project in when I want.
I have that luxury.
If any young creator is on a deadline but thinks they can turn in a project whenever they want just so they can get it right that creator at risk of becoming an asshole of the highest order and at a higher risk to be unemployed.
The Dark Horse project should be done this year, and I’m as happy as Mitt Romney’s dog was when he came down off that car roof. It’s a major graphic novel from a major publisher and Mike Richardson is one of the greats to work with not just in comics but the entertainment business.
But, you ask, what about the original earth shattering idea?
Well, I’m glad you asked. Last year at Comic Con I met with the head of another major comic book company who expressed great interest. We met again last November and he was still very interested I was told he would get back to me in two weeks to see rather or not it was a fit within his publishing plan.
Two weeks turned into four months. We met again briefly two months ago and he said he would get back to me shorty.
So far it’s been six months and I’ve heard neither yay nor nay.
That’s really not a big deal. Really it’s not. I’ve been waiting to do this project for over ten years, so six months is nothing. I’m also dealing with the head of the company so he’s got a lot on his plate. I don’t take any of this stuff personally.
Similarly, I’m a busy guy. I’ve writing three books (novels, not comics) and I have another graphic novel project as well as a TV show in development. Moreover I have a couple of other little things I’m doing, so like I said, I’m a busy guy so I was fine with waiting.
I was fine with waiting.
Last week another major player entered the game. They want to do Project X and they want to do it now.
So what do I do? Do I…
A. Pull the project from the publisher who has had it for six months and take it to the new publisher?
B. Do I give the publisher who has it as much time as they want to make a decision?
C. Do I tell the publisher who has the project to shit or get off the pot?
D. Do I not say a word to the publisher who has the project and let them know when the new publisher announces it at the San Diego Comic Con?
Pay attention here, young creators…
A is an asshole move.
B is simply a stupid move with another power player in the game.
If I were the old Michael Davis, it would be D. I’m not that guy anymore.
So that leaves C.
That’s the ticket, boys and girls. I’ve patiently waited six months, Hell, if you think about it I’ve patiently waited more than ten years.
On Monday April 23rd (tomorrow to me, yesterday to you) I’m sending a very nice email to the company that has my project and I’m saying very nicely to them please make a decision.
I know what they are going to do. I’m real good and according to many, I’m scary when it comes to predicting what others will do.
My birthday is a week from the date of this writing. That’s next Sunday, April 29th.
I’m sure I’ll be celebrating Project X and a new deal.
That’s a great gift. In fact it will be a first.
WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold Thinks Up Something Just In The Nick Of Time
In many entertainment fields, people hold closely valued opinions, making their decisions of what to purchase or reject based on these beliefs. Moviegoers won’t respond to strong female leads. Men don’t read. And so on. The problem is that no one knows where these beliefs come from since so few of these businesses actually do any demographic research. DC Entertainment made a big splash last year when they actually surveyed fans and held focus group meetings. It was the first time the comics field was analyzed in at least a decade.
That’s one reason why the industry collectively rejoiced today when Bonfire Agency sent out the following press release because it may begin to give us some real time information that publishers and retailers can use to improve their businesses.
Give this a read and see if you want to get involved:
(April 23, 2012—New York, NY) – Bonfire Agency, the advertising and marketing firm dedicated to helping companies better understand and deepen brand engagements with more than 5 million passionate comic and pop culture enthusiasts, announced today a new phase of recruitment for the agency’s proprietary “FanPan” consumer input panel. Consumers interested in joining the panel may do so online at www.bonfirefanpan.com. (more…)
What has gone before, quick and dirty recap… I’d sold (in my opinion) the second greatest idea in the history of comics to one of the greatest publishers in the business. It was to be written by one of the greatest writers (Dwayne McDuffie) with art by a guy (me) who was going to make sure this time he got it right.
All was right in the world. Except for one teensy little problem. The editor assigned to the project wanted to change one thing…
Me.
A few days after Jenette Kahn assigned the editor, Dwayne went to meet with him to map out the production schedule. I was living in Los Angeles and the meeting was in the New York offices of DC. There really was no reason for me to be there. After the meeting Dwayne would call and fill me in.
I couldn’t wait for that call. In hindsight, yes, yes I could have.
This weekend, THE LUCKY ONE opens in theaters bringing a best selling love story to the Big Screen. We talk to Zac Effron, Taylor Schilling and Blythe Danner on how each one took on their roles in the film. Plus there’s more on the final season of EUREKA with Colin Ferguson and news on DC’s revival of a familiar comic title.
This past week on my podcast (which you’re not listening to, but totally should), a debate sparked that was left largely unresolved. Since I have this digital soapbox, might as well use it to bring said debate to you.
In a few weeks, the mega-multiplexes of America will be screening the culmination of years of work by the House funded by the Mouse. The Avengers will see the fruition of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger in one massively multiplayer action adventure flick. About a month or so later, Warner Bros. unleashes the end to Christopher Nolan’s bat-child, The Dark Knight Rises. There’s no doubt in my mind that both of these movies will be amazingly profitable. But the debate is this: which will bank more bucks? Which will be a better movie? Let’s look at the tail of the tape.
First up? Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes. Behind the scenes, we have the consummate king of the nerds… Joss Whedon as director. His writer team? Well… Whedon wrote with Zak Penn. Penn you’ll note wrote the successes such as The Incredible Hulk and X2, and the failures such as X-Men: The Last Stand and Electra. On the screen itself, the cast is of course a veritable galaxy of stars. Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scartlet Johansson, and Gwyneth Paltrow will all be in the film. Unlike any other franchise in history, The Avengers will coalesce four franchises into a single picture. From here? It’s all but a given that the there will be a sequel, as corresponding sub-sequels for all the individual characters. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of money growing on trees. Trees that became paper. Paper that became comic books.
The Dark Knight Rises, as previously mentioned, is helmed by Christopher Nolan. Nolan’s career has been nothing short of a meteoric ascent to directorial gold. Nolan also helped pen this end to his triptych with his brother Jonathan, and David S. Goyer – who, as you will recall, helped pen Batman Begins and Blade 2. And Ghost Rider: Spirit of Bad Acting. But you can’t win them all, can you?
Under the cape and cowl will once again be Christian Bale, joined by series stalwarts Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman. The villain this go-around will be played by Tom Hardy. You’ll recognize Hardy as the mildly funny Brit in Inception. While not as big in scope as Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster, The Dark Knight Rises is the follow up to the single most profitable comic book inspired movie of all time. For those who don’t recall, The Dark Knight did so well in the movie theaters, comic retailers reported sales of The Watchmen had gone up in response (which is nothing short of amazing, if you ask any retailer these days). With TDKR, Nolan puts his series to an end. Speculation on the plot, and how things will resolve has most everyone around in a tizzy.
The question then to ask: Which movie will make more money? Needless to say, both will bank boku bucks. For the sake of this argument, I’ll remove revenue from merchandise. Why? Because face it: Nolan’s Bat-Flicks haven’t spawned successful lines of toys; Marvel’s has. Specifically speaking on ticket sales? This is quite the toss up, is it not? On one hand you have the obvious ultimate popcorn movie in The Avengers. From the trailers we can safely assume there’s going to be wall to wall action, explosions, the Hulk, fighting, one liners, and boobs. Opposing that mentality, Nolan will nab those looking for a bit more substance. Whereas Marvel’s flicks were squarely targeting tweens and teens (with a side of general comic nerds and action geeks to boot…), DC’s Bat-Franchise has been nothing if adult in its complexity.
Gun to my head… if you asked me to choose, I’d end up with the nod to the Avengers making more moolah at the end of the day. The Dark Knight had the death of Heath Ledger, on top of the oscar buzz for his performance, on top of previous audience gained from Batman Begins. But TDKR features a villain most people aren’t familiar with (Bane ain’t exactly a household name now, is he?), and a star whose potential is only just now being noticed. And if other comic book trilogies are to be looked at (Spider-Man, X-Men, and previous Bat-Incarnations), the end of an era does not always translate into positive earnings. With The Avengers, we simply have too many stars to not draw an amazing crowd. Fans of any of those feeder movies no doubt want to see a team up. It’s the whole reason books like The Avengers and Justice League always sell so well!
Now, I would give The Dark Knight Rises the edge ultimately in terms of potential film quality. Not a knock on The Avengers mind you… I think from what we’ve seen, Whedon will deliver the goods. But The Avengers has more chance to pratfall than ascend to nerdvana. With so many stars on screen, there’s a real chance too much time will be spent assembling, mocking, and joking. And we can tell much of the movie will be dealing with a Loki-lead invasion fight scene. And just how much CGI action can we effectively sit through? Given the spectacle (and disappointment) of the last Matrix movie, suffice to say I’m fretful.
With Batman, Nolan seems to have been methodically building a dramatic arc. Bruce Wayne by way of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight has been an evolving force of nature. But Nolan’s best job has been grounding that force in reality. He’s delivered where so many others have failed: comic book movies without heroic quips and a knowing wink to the camera. When that theme of the dissonant chords let us know the Joker was at work, it was truly chilling. To think that Nolan is ending this series, one must postulate he’s had an ending in mind since the start. On that knowledge, I give the edge over to DC. Simply put, I’m more excited for their flick because I genuinely do not know what will happen.
In The Avengers? I’m almost certain we’ll have the following: Loki attacks. Avengers assemble by way of initial in-fighting. Disaster. True assembling. Fighting. Explosions. Boobs. Victory. Open ending for more sequels. Not that it’s a bad formula… but it’s just that: a formula.
So, plenty of points to discuss. Flame me, Internet, for I have opinions. Will Bats take more money? Will Avengers be the Return of the King for Comic Book movies? Discuss!
