I guess with the not so stellar ratings of the fantastic “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” Disney figured it’d be a good idea to lay the ground work for another “Avengers” vehicle. This time, “The Avengers” are much closer to their cinematic counterparts, taking off from the first movie, and including superhero The Falcon, who is slated to appear in the upcoming sequel. What’s sad is, when you think about it, “Avengers Assemble” is actually a spin off of “Ultimate Spider-Man.” Marvel has laid the ground work for this new series with guest spots from the movie versions of the Avengers since the show started, with appearances from Iron Man, Thor, and the sun glasses donning Hawkeye.
Tag Archives: Marvel Comics
We Love "Hulk"
Being a pure comic book geek I was most surprised to discover that not only did The Incredible Hulk steal one of the biggest movies of 2012, “The Avengers,” but that the man who played him, Mark Ruffalo, has been the best Bruce Banner so far. The Hulk has been in two movies prior to “The Avengers,” and the limited screen time of The Hulk has warranted renewed interest in the character.
The Hulk is now going to have yet another new movie series in the work and is set to debut on television once again as Hollywood misses the point. Once again. The Hulk is excellent. In limited doses. In either case, while the first two cinematic efforts to give the Hulk a series have failed, I do have to admit one thing about the prior films.
Our Ten Favorite Bad Ass Monster Hunters
Last weekend we were introduced to a hidden era of one of the nation’s finest president when we learned Abraham Lincoln was in fact a vampire hunter in his prime. The film from Timur Bekmambetov has made waves with horror fans and enthusiasts alike and we look forward to seeing where his exploits bring him with his mighty axe in tow. In celebration of the film, we mulled over our ten favorite bad ass monster hunters from pop culture and celebrated the good guys who look out for the little guy against the big bads looming in the darkness.
Robots Killed My Grandma! Our Ten Favorite Robots of Pop Culture
Robots are at an all time high in popularity across the world. Not since the eighties has there been such a surge of robotic characters in pop culture, what with the smashing success of Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies, the battling bots in “Real Steel,” the upcoming “Battleship,” and the enigmatic David in Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated “Prometheus,” robots are as richly tapped in modern pop culture as ever before. In celebration of the newest trend of robots in modern cinema and media, we compiled ten of our favorite robots of pop culture, ranging from film, TV, comics, and literature. Grease up your rivets, and dive in.
The Avengers (2012)
What Joss Whedon has done is quite spectacular. He’s managed to take what could have been a complete clusterfuck of a movie and compacted every single hero and their mythos within two and a half hours, while also being able to introduce new heroes we can root for in the process. “The Avengers” is a true accomplishment of not only studio ambition but comic book cinema, a true masterpiece of the fantasy genre that piles together Marvel’s greatest heroes for a film many comic book fans have dreamed of having for decades. “The Avengers” incidentally is one of the many variations of Akira Kurosawa’s unparalleled masterpiece “Seven Samurai.” In “The Avengers” much like Kurosawa’s masterpiece, a thuggish villain rears his ugly head prepared to take down a land of innocent people for their own selfish purposes. Only when seven mismatched and unique heroes join forces and put aside their egos to defend the land does the villain meet his match. Ultimately while “The Avengers” is in fact an ambitious project that’s been planned from the get go, the film feels very meticulously crafted.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Fourth time’s a charm for Marvel who have finally stopped trying to retrofit their banner first tier character Captain America and just outright accepted that for better or for worse their most iconic superhero is meant for his time period, a time during world war II where Cap Am could mostly come to use to bring down the Nazis and the evil Hydra. Who better to bring this retro character to the big screen than Joe Johnston, a man who successfully brought us “The Rocketeer” in the early nineties? Much of that same child-like enthusiasm and movie serial aura is carried over in to this new version of Captain America where Marvel finally gets it right.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Whether we like it or not, from here on in Marvel Comics and Marvel Entertainment is officially owned by Disney Studios. What effect this will have on the comics and characters as a whole has yet to be fully realized, but many can agree one of the positive outcomes of this new ownership has been “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” a full fledged action adventure series starring all of the heroes we know and love fighting as one super team against Earth’s most impossible foes.
After a very disastrous animated attempt in the late nineties many fans recall with disgust, Disney has rebooted the animated franchise including all of our favorite heroes the aforementioned series failed to include and have considerably gone all out creatively and artistically. While the series will satisfy fans of the actual title, the intent of the series is to garner brand new fans of the titles and characters being pushed on a kids channel geared toward boys and will undoubtedly win over a brand new generation of true believers.