Thoughts on comic book characters and race

I think the issue of comic book characters and race is very interesting. Specifically with changing a characters race when adapting for film. There are quite a few examples of this, such as Kingpin being played by Michael Clark Duncan in Daredevil, Nick Fury being played by Sam Jackson in the Marvel Universe movies and most recently Laurence Fishburne being cast as Perry White in the new Superman movie. Nick Fury being black is an interesting situation because when Marvel started their Ultimate series, a parallel continuity they modeled the new Nick Fury after Sam Jackson. Only for Sam Jackson to then be cast as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which seems to be based on the normal continuity rather than the Ultimate continuity.

A less recent example and actually the reason that inspired me to write this, was Donald Glovers campaign to be the new Spider-man before Andrew Garfield was cast. I love Community and think Glover certainly has the comedic skills and I’m sure he could play serious as well. I do think he would be a terrific Peter Parker, except for the fact that he’s Black. Being familiar with the character, that matters to me quite a bit. I don’t want a black Peter Parker anymore than I want an Asian Superman or a Black Captain America. It’s nothing to do with being racist, it’s just about wanting beloved characters to be portrayed accurately. You can’t just arbitrarily change race just like you can’t arbitrarily change a characters gender or sexual orientation.

The interesting thing to me is how certain people take this. Apparently it’s racist to want characters to be portrayed accurately. Dan Harmon, the creator of Community referred to a ” previously unknown demographic of racist comic-book readers”, which is simply bullshit. I repeat, there is nothing racist about wanting a character to be portrayed as is. This i09 article asks why can’t Peter Parker be a different color, then saying that simply because Peter Parker is white isn’t as good a reason. Yes it is, it’s a perfect reason. Race is as much a part of a character as gender, physical appearance, personality, sexual orientation and a multitude of other factors. I think a good example is Superman. Superman needs to be white. To the best of my knowledge there are not black families in Kansas that have owned farmland for generations like the Kents have. Nor Asians. Growing up Middle America is how Superman came to be. Now, it’s fine to change that, but then you have essentially created a different new character riding on the success of the real character.

Among the comments I’ve read on this issue people have made the point that a black youth growing up in NYC would be a different person from a white middle class youth growing up with his aunt. While I could easily see that being the case, I don’t think that has to be the case. Oddly enough, Stan Lee gave his blessing to Donald Glover playing Spider-man. Since he created Spider-man, I would think that would settle the issue, but it doesn’t. All that says is that Stan lee doesn’t think anything of essence would be lost by casting to a different race. Even so, the fans disagree. What good reason is there not to make Peter Parker something other than Caucasian? How about because there is no reason to do so? Why change his race just for the sake of it? Especially if race doesn’t matter as people say, then why the big push to change his race? I’m really sick of the hypocrisy from people who feel the need to make things equal when they are not, because they have fooled themselves into thinking it is fair and “progressive”.

Oddly enough there seems to be an outcry when a white actor is recast, but not so much when non white characters are played by white actors. It seems like this would be more cause for outrage, yet people have been mostly silent on the issue. Some good examples are Ras al Ghul and Bane in Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. Ras al Ghul is meant to be Middle Eastern, but is played by the Irish Liam Neeson. Bane is meant to be Hispanic, from a comic book equivalent to Cuba, and is now being played by the English Tom Hardy. I suppose part of this is peoples lack of familiarity with these characters, still it is frustrating. Bane grew up in a Latin American prison hell hole, being punished for his father’s crimes. That was a big part of who the character is, something that is lost when a white actor is cast.

So far it seems to me there is rarely a good reason to change the race of a character and often good reasons not to. Sometimes how well known or developed the character is plays a big part. Perry White being black isn’t going to change anything about the character or how he deals with Clark. Bane not being Hispanic is going to change a lot of details about the character, for no good reason. Why not use a different character? A friend of mine believes that we should be casting vastly more minorities as well known characters to even out the odds. I think that’s just bullshit. White people in the USA…nay the west are a majority. That’s just how it is. Why would a world based on ours not reflect that? If 10% of the US population is Black, shouldn’t roughly 10% of the US Super-Hero population be Black? Why should it be artificially inflated to say, %25 ? To try and pretend minorities are not minorities and they are every bit as common as a majority? This is political correctness gone insane. Don’t change the race or other core details of characters without good reason and don’t artificially boost minorities to paint some bullshit false depiction of reality.

Interestingly, I like what Marvel has done with the new Spider-Man. In the Ultimate continuity the new Spider-Man is mixed race, Black and Hispanic and potentially gay. I have absolutely no problem with this because they are not fucking with Peter Parker. Peter Parker is the character people are attached to. Spider-man can be anyone who wears the suit and has a spidey sense. What I don’t get is why people were upset about this. Peter Parker is white, Spider-man doesn’t have to be. A Superman who isn’t a Kent or a Batman who isn’t a Wayne can be any race they want and may well be interesting characters in their own right. It does feel a tad forced, with him being 3 minorities in one…but still. I have no problem with diversity in characters – as long as it’s not forced and as long as it’s not screwing with characters developed over several decades just for the sake of it.

Thoughts on Moon and Source Code

Moon the debut directorial effort of Duncan Jones was released to much praise and acclaim in 2009. I knew the film captured the tone of other space movies such as 2001 and Solaris, however I wasn’t too sure what to expect. Ultimately I didn’t really like Moon very much, although it was hard to say exactly why. Or at least it isn’t hard to say why but my criticisms of the movie shouldn’t bring it down as much as it does in my mind.

The movie does a very good job of establishing the atmosphere and situation of the protagonist…however the whole film feels like a setup for something much grander. We ultimately find out that Sam is one of many clones, with imprinted memories. If one is damaged or dies there is a whole supply ready to be activated and take over. For such an interesting premise…I don’t feel Moon takes advantage of it. Questions of who we are….who are we if an exact duplicate exists…..to what extent do our memories define us….is death meaningless if we can be exactly replicated…all these things could be examined but they are not. Even The 6th Day did a better job of examining these things.

Instead after the reveal we have two Sam’s finding out more about their situation before deciding to send one back to earth. The audio at the end of the movie makes it clear that the clones were illegal and that the company is held liable for criminal activity. Which I suppose is a happy ending of sorts. Although I wonder why the choice was made to make cloning illegal…I would have thought by making it legal that it would have provided a greater opportunity to commentate on what humans are capable of and perhaps where we are heading. I enjoyed the movie I just think it too to long to setup, and that not enough was explored.

Source Code seemed a lot more interesting to me, with the previews reminding me strongly off 12 monkeys. It isn’t really a similar movie at all beyond the time travel aspect, given that it lacks the predestination aspect and takes place in an alternate reality. That is perhaps the most frustrating thing about Source Code, in that the technology is never explained. Aside from the weird name why can you relive a short period of someone’s life, but in an alternate reality? Why would it not be in this reality if memories were harnessed? What are the differences in the alternate time line? Anything?

I also thought the love story was odd given that he only talk to Christina for a maximum of 8 minutes at a time. He didn’t seem to go in less than 10 times, so that’s 80 minutes max, not even considering much of that time he is running around looking for a bomb. 80 minutes is enough to be attracted to someone, but not enough to want to risk everything to save someone, especially if you are a soldier and have a higher duty. The love story was dumb….but it’s the premise that I don’t get. You can relive someone’s life from an alternative universe that is similar enough that the information is useful in this one. Since what happened already happened you can’t change things, only interact.

The exposition in the movie made it seem like it was an advanced simulation, yet as we saw obviously the alternate time line can be affected. Was a new timeline created from Stevens actions? Infinite time lines? The movie doesn’t pay much attention to these details focusing on the love story and damsel in distress, which I think is a shame. Fleshing out the details of the source code would have provided for a richer universe and allowed examining the ramifications of playing around with another universe of people. Whatever. The movie was entertaining which is one of the most important things. I think it was a step up from Moon in terms of pacing and fleshing out the story, but I would like to see a little bit more of the premise explained in his future films.

One thing I found interesting is that Moon and Source Code seemed to have some themes in common. An external force putting the protagonist into a dire situation. The protagonist not realizing it straight away and having to discover their predicament. The protagonists being limited or feeble in some way and having to overcome that. What we are capable of doing to people and what we consider acceptable. In Moon we have clones which are considered expendable and efficient, so less than human. In Source Code we have a veteran being used essentially as a processor without his knowledge and later without consent, for the good of the people. I think these are interesting themes and I would like to see the director develop them further, rather than just have them as background commentary.

Thoughts on Hanna

I had been looking forward to watching Hanna for some time. At the time it was released it was getting high praise and so seemed to be the most interesting film to be released so far in 2011. Add to the fact it was being compared to Leon the Professional and had a cast of very talented actors, I was very interested. Unfortunately I just felt the movie ended up lacking, being a lot less than it could have been.

The story was interesting and the acting was excellent, it’s just that the story was not fleshed out nearly enough. I think only getting surface details hurt a lot. It was an interesting backstory but I don’t know that it was motivation enough to hide in a cabin in the woods for all her life. I mean…with Heller’s resources would it have been so hard to disappear into society somewhere? Although I wonder what his motivations were to raise the child in the first place as opposed to just dropping the baby off at an orphanage somewhere.

Cate Blanchett’s acting is fine, although her southern accent is a bit much. She never has seemed to pull off accents particularly well. I do think this is one of the better films of this year, although I have yet to see I Saw the Devil. I don’t think it is very much like the professional at all, aside from the fact you have a young girl somewhat paired with an older mentor, but even that is only the beginning of the film so I don’t think it’s really an apt comparison.

The biggest fault I have with the film is Hanna’s learning about the outside world should have been a much bigger ordeal. It is made a point in the cabin to note that she has never heard music, yet the bustling marketplace of somewhere in Morocco doesn’t faze her? I would have thought the family would show her compassion and love and music and all sorts of things, but not really. It’s brushed on very briefly but not really touched on. Instead the movie ends up being somewhat of an ordinary manhunt. There are also a few unanswered questions like what happened to the family and how did the merc track them down in the first place?

Mainly though I wonder where she would go from there. Her only mentor and person she could trust is dead, so she is alone in the world with no resources. She is highly trained and resourceful so I don’t see that as a problem, still I wonder how she would now choose to define herself. It was an interesting premise but as it didn’t emphasize the parts I thought it should, it turned out to just be OK. Before Hanna Joe Wright had only made Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. I think he did a good job of branching away from those types of movies with Hanna and it will be interesting to follow his career, as well as that of Saoirse Ronan.

Thoughts on Back to the Future The Game – Episodes 4 and 5

Episode 4 was fun enough, but it was much of the same so I didn’t feel there was reason enough to make it a separate post. All the same criticisms still stand, so I thought I would wrap up the last two episodes in a single post. So…observations. I seem to remember a reference to Marty’s Calvin Kelin underwear, which I thought was a nice nod to fans. I thought it was odd when he was playing the guitar that there seemed to be a wireless guitar amp. I know nothing of music, so perhaps there is these days. I think I took around 2hours to finish episode 4, which was a nice change.

Episode 5 seemed more promising. The very start was annoyinh, simply because I knew exactly what was happening with Doc in the divers suit and such, and it took a long time to go through the motions for an expected result. I guess that can just be the problem with these types of games. I also thought it odd that Doc could be erased by suffocating Emmet. Surely Doc would alert authorities before Emmet could suffocate? Eh…whatever. I also really didn’t like the alternate version of Doc. Yes….he had spent 60 years with Edna and was a different person, but would he really be so nefarious as to try and keep the timeline for selfish purposes?

I also thought it very odd that Judge Brown is German, with oversized ears. The physical characteristic is odd enough…but I really liked that they kept him German, keeping with Doc’s family history from the movies. There was a period where you had to mediate which was just boring. Going back and forth isn’t solving a puzzle its going through the motions. I thought it odd that Doc disappeared…it seemed arbitrary, since he was already around he should have disappeared earlier, not because it was convenient for the plot. Also…what was with Edna fucking up the timeline? Why would Marty and Doc be left behind? Why wouldn’t they disappear? Granted they were from an alternate time line originally, but with what Edna did Doc would have never invented the time machine in the first place, so they shouldn’t have existed at all. Another random observation for the whole series in fact is why if the Delorean they are using is a “temporal duplicate”, why are there not two duplicates of doc?
I guess such things are too much for a simple game like this to explore.

It was nice to see Michael J Fox do some voice acting as Marty’s distant ancestor as well. Overall the games were fun and it was nice to see the universe extended a bit after the movies. We won’t ever get a fourth movie and inevitably they will be remade at some point, so it was nice to see some continuation with the original cast.

Thoughts on Duke Nukem Forever

I played Duke Nukem Forever recently, which was refreshing. It was odd to actually be playing it given the insane amount of time it had been in development and how unlikely it seemed that it would actually be released, but there it was. I was curious to play it as I had been dissatisfied with PC games recently, what with single player campaigns being an afterthought more than the main point. The game had not really scored any good reviews, with the best reviewes considering it a mediocre game and many more reviews considering the game downright bad. I was prepared for a bad game considering another studio had come in at the last minute just to finish up and get the product out the door, which didn’t bode well for the quality of the finished game. Surprisingly…the game wasn’t too fun.

The main thing about the game is that it is the strangest mix of old and new. The graphics are very obviously out of date, yet there are a whole host of modern gaming “innovations” such as only being able to carry two guns at once and regenerating health. The regenerating health is perfect…..no more avoiding a room full of enemies with only 2 health. The gun limit is simply frustrating for a game of this type however, especially since you can’t anticipate the type of enemies you will be encountering. To be fair it didn’t really hamper me from getting through the game, but it would have been nice to have been able to cycle through many weapons to use. It also would have been nice to have a secondary fire on some of the weapons, but whatever.

The loading times were a mixed bag on my PC, taking a long time to load initially which is surprising since outdated graphics should equate to smaller sized textures. However once initially loaded it was fast every subsequent time. I found it someone annoying you can’t shoot humans…even if everybody turned on me. Although I guess they can’t have Duke taken out by a single human. The premise of the game is fun, with Duke now being…well more popular and richer than any human being who has ever lived after single handily saving the world from aliens. The twins in his penthouse seem poorly done and somewhat forced in. In fact, the tone of the game is kind of odd. At first the game is semi-serious, then it turns very serious where in one level you have to kill girls taken hostage and being forcibly impregnated with aliens, and shortly after that you get to ride a monster truck while being shrunk. It’s quite an odd mix, with some levels seeming out of place depending how you want to take the game.

At the same time it is well designed in that you constantly feel that you are moving forward and progressing through a story. Some games manage to fuck up such a simple thing these days, feeling like you complete level after level without real progression. I do wish there were more movies or cutscenes – one of my favorite things of 90’s PC games was the cutscenes, it was like a reward for getting through the level.

Some of the levels were frustrating more than fun, namely fighting the Queen Bitch where there was a lack of ammo, and Underground Part 2 where having to fight many fish without suffocating took quite a few tries. It could have been because I had the wrong weapons as well, but given the lack of saves I couldn’t go back and change. The end boss was also annoying with the tapping to pull out hoses being inconsistent. Sometimes it would be on the first try and sometimes it took several, while I’m sure I was not tapping any less passionately. In fact the ending was the most disappointing aspect of the whole game with Duke being presumed dead? Then having to wait a loooong time for credits to finish to see a shitty clip of him running for president? Not worth it.

The game was fun, and it was nice to play a game for more than 5 hours. I wish more modern games had not left behind many of the aspects of 90’s games which made them great, but whatever. Given the time this was in development a lot more should have been expected, but judging it for what it is, it’s still a fun game if inconsistent.

Thoughts on Bane and Catwoman pictures from TDKR

Within the last week we have finally seen pictures of Bane and Catwoman in action while the movie was filming in Pittsburgh. They have been both underwhelming and disappointing to say the least. First we saw some pictures of Bane fighting Batman where we get to gauge his size in comparison. Tom Hardy is a whole head shorter than Batman…Venom or not, how is this going to be the guy to break the bat? It was surprising enough that Lazarus pits are apparently going to be in the next movie, but Bane as well? At this stage Bane seems to be working with the police, so I get the feeling Bane is going to be closer to Max Cort from the Prey storyline then..well….Bane. Unless they are using trickery to make Bane look bigger than batman, or unless there is Venom and his growth is exaggerated, I don’t see how Bane is going to be anything similar to the Bane from Knightfall. Which begs the question; if you’re not going to use the Bane from Knightfall why use him at all?

What about the pictures of Catwoman? There seems little doubt that Catwoman will be in this movie giver she is wearing a leather catsuit, riding a batpod and has high-tech goggles. The problem here is….she doesn’t look like Catwoman at all. No ears, not even really a mask. Will she even have a whip? Anne Hathaway was never a great choice for Catwoman…and these new pictures don’t inspire confidence. Heath Ledger was such an unexpected casting yet when we saw the first pictures of him as the Joker everybody started to see that it could work. The same thing isn’t happening with Catwoman where the pictures are simply underwhelming. I really hope that the posters for TDKR have her in more of a traditional costume, or I wonder once again why use the character in the first place?

Roland Emmerich is far worse than Michael Bay

For a long time I have heard people lampoon and criticize Michael Bay to what seems an unfair extent. The guy makes fun popcorn movies that are unashamedly an excuse for action, but this does not mean they are poorly made. They tend to have charismatic characters and acceptable dialogue with the action fitting into whatever story is being told. At the same time, I have heard very few people criticize Roland Emmerich’s films. This is what I don’t understand, as Emmerich’s films have to be at least twice as bad as any Bay movie. Emmerich’s films tend to be as inaccurate as possible whether it be scientifically or historically, have very flat characters and poorly written dialog with the sole purpose of his movies being the action scenes. Which are not filmed with any noticeable skill but rely on the visual spectacle of cities being destroyed with the aid of CGI.

So in this short post I will attempt a comparison between Emmerich’s and Bay’s 8 last movies, including the current Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Bay Movies	RT %	Emmerich Movies	RT %
Bad Boys – A decent buddy cop comedy with likable characters and decent action scenes. Formulaic but entertaining none the less.	39%	Universal Soldier – An interesting premise which turned out to be a lackluster movie, still it was entertaining enough.	22%
The Rock – Probably my favorite out of Bay’s movies. A good story for an action movie, good characters and great action scenes. Also, Sean Connery while he was still awesome.	67%	Stargate – As above an interesting premise, although it wasn’t terribly entertaining and didn’t have much action. It’s greatest accomplishment was inspiring the TV series, although at least in the movies the aliens spoke English.	47%
Armageddon – I never liked this movie that much, much preferring Deep Impact, but it wasn’t bad per se. Plus, it had Bruce Willis chasing Ben Afleck with a shotgun.	41%	ID4 – This was a huge summer blockbuster movie, but it was full of plot holes and a poorly thought out story. Still, the effects were impressive and people enjoyed it. Fun for what it is, even with the amount of suspension of disbelief if requires.	60%
Pearl Harbor – I never saw this, and have no desire to. Every indication is that it is horribly historically inaccurate with a thin plot and poor dialogue. So, one completely terrible movie for Bay.	27%	Godzilla – I didn’t really have a problem with this and for most people who did the problem seemed to be calling a random monster Godzilla, when Godzilla is an iconic character with a personality. Meh. As far as US monster movies go, it’s one of the better ones.	25%
Bad Boys 2 – Similar to the first, but with far more action and comedy. An enjoyable ride and fine for what it is.	23%	The Patriot	62%
The Island – Probably the second best Bay movie. I didn’t see the "twist" coming, and quite liked the characters trying to escape their predicament. It even managed some interesting commentary.	40%	The Day After Tomorrow – This is where Emmerich really started to go downhill.	45%
Transformers – Didn’t really care for it as I was never into Transformers although many people liked it, thinking it Bay’s best movie by far.	%57	10,000 BC – Have not seen it, but it looked atrocious. Horribly historically inaccurate with no plot to speak of.	%9
Transformers 2 – Did not see all of it, but saw enough to think considering twin robots racist was imbecilic.	%20	2012 – Saw parts of it, just a ridiculously weak excuse of a plot for CGI city devastation. Bay’s films always have at least some plot and interesting characters.	%39

So if we do the average scores based on Rotten Tomato ratings, Bay comes in with an average of 39.5 slightly ahead of Emmerich who has 38.625. Less than 1% difference, which I actually find hard to believe. What about box office gross? According to Box Office Mojo,
Emmerich has a lifetime total gross of $1,111,318,231 and an average of $138,914,779 while Bay has a lifetime total gross of $1,495,782,691 and an average of $186,972,836.

So Bay has better ratings from critics albeit slightly, although I think with Transformers 3 coming out vs. Anonymous -a ridiculous Shakespeare as a fraud story – the ratio will significantly change. Bay also has much better box office performance than Emmerich. Objectively he is ahead of Emmerich and personally I don’t think his movies are anywhere near as bad as Emmerichs.

The point I am making is that Bay is good at what he does and should not be criticized for the types of movies he wants to make. People can criticize action movies with less of an emphasis on plot and characters, but that doesn’t mean he is bad at making those types of movies or that those movies are intrinsically bad. In contrast Emmerich is appallingly bad no matter what he tries to do. I really hope that people stop hating on Bay who is decent at what he does, and start giving Emmerich the criticism he deserves, hopefully in time to stop him from destroying the Foundation franchise.

Recent thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises

The first news that was released in early April is that TDKR is going to be shooting in Pittsburgh, which will replace Chicago as the setting for Gotham City. It seems like an odd choice to change it for the final film and given how successful the franchise in I would not think budget was a limitation. I have not been to Pittsburgh not known much about it, but I assume it must have something special that will fit the fell of the third movie better than the streets of Chicago or New York City.

Later on in April the roles that Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are playing were announced the characters of Miranda Tate and John Blake respectively. These characters are not from the comics so they could be brand new characters as was the case with Rachel Dawes, very minor parts or as many people are speculating, pseudonyms for more well known characters. I don’t really see Joseph Gordon-Levitt being given a small role given how much Christopher Nolan likes him, yet I can’t imagine what role from the comics he might play starting off as a cop.

As for Marion Cotillard playing Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member, it certainly sounds like a minor part. Many people have been speculating or perhaps wishing that she will be playing Talia Al Ghul, something I really hope is not true. I would have thought there was not much to support that. Josh Pence was cast as a young Ra’s Al Ghul but Nolan seemed unlikely to bring characters back to life, so I assumed it was probably for a flashback. I can’t really see Nolan wanting to Introduce Talia into the final film as she won’t get the screentime she deserves, although considering what he did to Two-Face I wouldn’t be surprised.

The most interesting news which also makes the possibility of Talia appearing in TDKR far more likely was the first set photo of TDKR filming in India, which appears to show Lazarus pits. They could just be random pits or pools….but the coincidence is too much to ignore. It is the biggest surprise so far given that Nolan is trying to go such a realistic take on the Batman mythos. As I wrote in my last article I think Nolan could handle the Lazarus pits in a realistic way, just as he handled quantum suicide in The Prestige. Lazarus Pits in TDKR may indicate Young Ra’s Al Ghul will have a larger role not resigned to a flashback, and would certainly allow for the introduction of Talia. It’s interesting and such a shock, that I really can’t guess where this movie is going.

Most recently we got the first picture of Tom Hardy as Bane . A welcome surprise is that he is actually wearing a mask. It isn’t a Luchador mask which isn’t surprising since Nolan stripped the character of all Hispanic traits, but for him to be wearing a mask is an indication the interpretation of the character may still be somewhat faithful. As for how Tom Hardy looks as Bane physically? I like how broad he has gotten in the shoulders, but would have preferred he have larger biceps. I don’t expect the hulk from the comics, but something closer to Schwarzenegger in his prime.

I’m really looking forward to see where this movie goes. I have a lot of problems with how Nolan has treated the characters so far, not least turning Bruce Wayne into a soldier, eliminating his skills and intelligence. Still, to see a faithful interpretation of Bane and Catwoman and lazarus pits on screen is going to be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it more than any other movie right now.

Thoughts on the Smallville Finale

I wasn’t surprised that the Smallville Finale was bad…but I was amused to see just how bad it was. This is what fans had been waiting 10 years for, how could they not be disappointed? First of all we had season 10 implying a confrontation with Darkseid, one of the more interesting comic book villains, and at the end maybe a 10 second battle. Then we have a retarded plot of the planet Apokolips crashing into earth. Why? Why enslave humans if you are just going to kill them? How could our scientists mistake a planet for a meteorite? Why would Darkseid move his planet all the way to our galaxy? Most of all…how could a planet get so close to us without severely fucking up our atmosphere, climate and land? None of this mattered as Superman simply flew up and pushed the planet away. We waited 10 years for him to even be able to fly and at the same time he became powerful enough to push an entire fucking planet away. OK, sure.

Then, characters were brought back simply because it was the finale without any clear reason for being there. Lionel from the other universe was back, acting like the Lionel from the main universe…apparently having been planning something all along. Jonathan was brought back not just as a vision, but apparently tangible enough to hand Clark his costume. Lex was brought back from the sum of his various failed clones, from what I understand. Of course, Jimmy was there, the most idiotic thing ever. Jimmy Olsen who looks exactly the same and has the same name as his dead brother is back, what, 7 years later making him…15ish? All of these characters were terribly underused and shoehorned into the episode in ways that didn’t even make sense.

What about the whole becoming Superman thing? We never see Clark settle on the name Superman, we never see him clearly in his costume, we never see the worlds reaction to his emergence as Superman. He only flies in the last 5 minutes of the show…10 years of Superman and 5 minutes of flying. Aye. Even in the future they don’t show him as Superman…why was it so hard to show him in his costume and perhaps have people talk about Superman? Why was the costume in the fortress of solitude? I think Tom Welling looked good as Superman…it would have been nice if we actually saw him in the costume though.

It was Jor El’s plan all along that Clark would wear that specific costume and be a superhero on earth? Kind of takes away a lot from the character doesn’t it? Of course nothing was explained. Last but not least, they didn’t show the wedding of Clark and Lois. Something the show had been seemingly building up to and I imagine fans were looking forward to, yet again nothing resulted. The finale of Smallville was possibly the worst episode of the series, which is fitting for a show that continue to disappoint. I just don’t understand how the producers could make such a bad episode, unless it was deliberate. Aye.

Thoughts on DC vs Marvel

DC vs Marvel is an interesting issue for those who care enough, as people tend to have fairly strong opinions on it. For me, the issue is simple. DC represents quality while Marvel represents quantity. DC has a few key characters, all iconic and complex. All have been interpreted and reinterpreted in a myriad of ways, because doing so allows interesting things to be explored. Take for example Batman, where we had the campy 60’s version, the 90’s TAS, the appalling Burton series and the current Nolan series. Has anything similar even been attempted with a Marvel character, or is it even really possible? To be fair, Frank Miller managed this with Daredevil, but by adding a lot to what was a poorly defined character in the first place.

By contrast Marvel seems to bank on having a huge collection of characters interacting with each other in interesting ways. These characters always seem to simply be catalyst for the plot, without ever being interesting characters in themselves. If I read a story about Batman, it can be riveting if he is in his home for more than half of the story. I can’t see that working with many Marvel characters. To be fair, Marvel does have a few interesting characters, Wolverine (whose gain in popularity was also due to Miller), Silver Surfer, Hulk and sometimes Punisher. It’s not often however that these characters are really explored or have interesting story arcs. Indeed whenever I try to get involved I can’t help but feel they have just been stagnating, not having progressed much in the last few years.

One thing I have noticed anecdotally is that many marvel fans are really X-Men fans. They identified with the X-Men during childhood, feeling different or picked on for whatever reason. The thing with the X-Men is that it is so glaringly obvious that I can’t see what people get out of it. Oh look, a group of mutants (people who are somehow different) ostracized by society. I too am different and feel picked on, so I identify! Yeesh. DC comics may not have such superficial metaphors, but I’ll take carefully developed complex characters over that any day of the week. The other thing with Marvel characters is that they all seem to be fundamentally good or bad people. The heroes always end up doing the right thing more often than not, while the villains either try to do the right thing or go back to their villainous way. I mean, can it get any more obvious than a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?

This is a trivial post, but I would be interested if Marvel fans could defend their brand and maybe point me to some interesting counter examples. I still have yet to read Civil War which I hope will explore some interesting issues, although I can’t help but think it’s not going to get across the same message as Kingdom Come did in only four issues, which it does appear to be trying for. Still, if anyone can recommend me some interesting complex characters or story arcs, or just refute my assumptions/observations, it would be much appreciated.

Update 1 – September 19th 2011

Another thing that always irked me about Marvel was the amount of Characters who happened to be a result of radiation. I guess this is a result of many characters being created in the 50’s and 60’s….but still. Marvel has Spider-man, Hulk, the Fantastic Four, DareDevil, Phoenix and probably others I can’t remember right now. Radiation doesn’t seem to be the origin for DC characters nearly as often…instead we have humans with various personal motivations or scientists who discover something new they can use or aliens. Not simply coming up with a new power and using radiation as the explanation for it. It just seems lazy to do so.