Prepare to be struck by lightning...

[Tawmis]

The Hammer shall fall...
http://thor.marvel.com/

... and a God shall rise.
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810026342/video

[gumby]

About time they made a movie about Thor. Sadly, I've been disappointed so many times from movies adapted from comics...

[Tawmis]

About time they made a movie about Thor. Sadly, I've been disappointed so many times from movies adapted from comics...

I haven't minded the current movies (X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk, even {current} Batman).

I mean, I had my qualms with them (being a huge comic geek) about how things are drastically changed - but you have to expect it when they adapt from one source to another. For example, Cyclops, Iceman, Jean, Angel, and Beast were all on the original X-Men. But the X-Men movies make it seem like Beast and Angel aren't even known, and Iceman is this kid. Pyro is older than them all, and yet he's a kid in the movie. Rogue is in her mid 20's in the comics, yet a kid in the movie. The entire team made up never existed in comics, in the form that they do the movies. But I thought they delivered solid movies, regardless. (X-MEN 3 had quite a few problems, but they were able to be... over looked). The first Hulk movie (fairly recently) wasn't good. Fun movie, just not a good movie. The second Hulk they did was considerably better. Iron Man had a ton of things different from the comics, but to me, the two IRON MAN movies have been nearly flawless, regardless. The current state of BATMAN movies have been good. Even the Wolverine movie was really good.

So I have high hopes that the THOR one will play out well.

[gumby]

I find my evaluation of the Marvel movies in-line with yours. I agree that the recent Batman movies (Chris Nolan) have also been good (I'm less of a DC guy).

I'm also am (was) a comics fanatic. I'm trying to put my finger on why/what I am dissatisfied with. Spiderman (over-commercialization?), Daredevil (Ben Affleck may have been the negative here) & the many Punisher movies (where do I start here?) come to mind. Yeah, the first Hulk was a huge let-down. I found the X-Men movies enjoyable & more-or-less on the mark.

Maybe it's just there is only so much you can put into a 2 hour movie from a comic series that has run for decades.

Anyway, I'm hoping to enjoy the new Thor movie (didn't read the title much, so I don't have a lot of working knowledge of the character).

[Tawmis]

Like you, I am far less a DC person. For the first time, since collecting (and I think I started around like 1978?) about six years ago, I began collecting some DC Titles (Teen Titans, Outsiders, Aquaman, Hawkman, and a few others) that DC had rebooted to #1's again. I knew MOST of them from my days as a kid, watching the SUPER FRIENDS cartoon. So I had a VERY minor grasp on who was who (but then there's been like three or four Robins and such, same with Flash, Green Lantern, etc) that made the comics confusing at times - but I endured. Until they launched "52" (read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52_%28comics%29 and cover galley over here: http://comicbookdb.com/storyarc.php?ID=2216 )... And needless to say they turned the DC Universe inside out and I dropped the titles.

I began recently picking up Teen Titans again and Titans.

Spider-Man I liked. I thought, over all, they kept VERY near to the mark in terms of the comics (and even had small little references, like when MJ said, "Go get'em Tiger" and small things like that).

Daredevil - Could have been better, yes. Definitely not one of my top comic movies, but they did some cool stuff with it. Besides, it had Jennifer Gardner in it.

Elektra - Despite my love for Jennifer Gardner, there was nothing that could save how bad this movies was, but being the comic geek that I am (and because of my obsessions with Jennifer, I got it anyway).

Oh...

I just thought of one. Fantastic Four. Both of them. More so the first one. Down. Right. Horrible.

HORRIBLE.

Only good things - THING and HUMAN TORCH (who is going on to be playing CAPTAIN AMERICA for the Captain America movie). There was no redeeming value to these two movies, other than these two actors/characters, who I feel nailed the characters. Jessica Abba or whatever as Invisible Girl/Woman? Someone... shoot me now. There was no chemistry between her and the guy that played Reed. And the whole Reed and Doom thing seemed so utterly down played. It was all kinds of bad. Just. Bad.

[Tawmis]

Oh. And as for not having read THOR - they recently rebooted it.

And it (was) some of the best writing in comics in a very long time.

[DeadPoolX]

I like both Marvel and DC, but my interest isn't about the Marvel or DC world. It's simply that I like some characters more than others.

MARVEL
My favorite Marvel hero is Iron Man. This was true LONG before the movies. I first got interested during the "Armor Wars" in the mid-1980s. Both my brother and I have a soft spot for the Silver Centurion armor used back then. Stark had the whole "Tom Selleck Magnum PI" look going which is hilarious looking back.

What helped the IM movies a LOT was the costume itself. IM's armor is theoretically possible and therefore, doesn't look stupid. Armor looks far more realistic than wearing spandex.

The only hero who wears spandex (and can make it work) is Spider-Man. He's supposed to be agile and flexible so wearing a light costume makes sense. His costume didn't look too stupid for spandex, either.

I've never been interested in Thor. In fact, the majority of the Avengers never did a whole lot for me. I feel differently with Marvel's "Ultimate" line, in which the Avengers are really interesting. I particularly like the fact that Captain America acts like a person, instead of a walking WWII recruitment poster.

DC
As for DC, my favorite is Batman. Once again, I liked the character a lot before the recent movies (including Tim Burton's Batman). My opinion of the character changed a lot when I read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Miller's conception of Batman was radically different from the way Batman had been portrayed before (much of which owes its blame to the 1960s Batman TV show).

Miller's Batman was psychotic, brutal, ruthless and enjoyed inflicting pain on criminals. He also considered Superman well-intentioned, but extremely annoying, saw Wonder Woman as an uber-feminist man-hating bitch and thought the Green Lantern was a drooling moron.

Some people might say, "That's horrible! Batman isn't like that!" Really? This is the same man who dresses up as a bat (among other things) in order to make criminals shit their pants. Let's face it, the guy probably isn't the most well-adjusted person around.

Superman is okay too, but I think DC has been screwing him up again. In the 1980s, after DC had its Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, I thought Superman was cool. They had reduced his power levels (he was still one of the most powerful guys in DC, but he couldn't go around juggling planets anymore), changed the way his invulnerability worked and made him a little less boyscout-like. I think DC is now reverting back to the old Pre-Crisis days, unfortunately.

I liked Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern, not Hal Jordan. Jordan has the personality of a rock, whereas Rayner was interesting, especially when he was new to being a superhero (something that wasn't his choice, either). It looks like the new GL movie will have Hal Jordan in it and end up pretty piss poor too.

[AndreaDraco]

My contribute will be extremely limited, since I don't like superheroes - or comic books, for that matter - that much, but I just wanted to say that Spiderman is the best

[Tawmis]

MARVEL
My favorite Marvel hero is Iron Man. This was true LONG before the movies. I first got interested during the "Armor Wars" in the mid-1980s. Both my brother and I have a soft spot for the Silver Centurion armor used back then. Stark had the whole "Tom Selleck Magnum PI" look going which is hilarious looking back.

Well, looking at the books now that were printed back then can be very funny. Especially when characters dressed in "fashion" of those times (like Boom-Boom from New Mutants/briefly X-Factor) - and had that whole tattered clothing, Madonna look going.

But something that made me chuckle last weekend is I bought some really old AVENGERS comics (we're talking pre-dating my birth, which was 40 years ago!) and there is dialogue in there where Hawkeye (for the win!) is talking to Black Panther (who is an African from a fictional country called Wakanda) and he keeps calling Black Panther, "Jungle Man." I am not sure, in today's overly hyper sensitive world, that a white man could call a black man (from Africa) "Jungle Man" and do so repeatedly!

I did pick up what I think is an artist being sneaky by drawing Egghead (in Avengers #65) apparently smoking what appears to be a joint, rather than a cigarette.

And if you enjoyed that armor set from IRON MAN, did you ever read West Coast Avengers back in the 90's? He (well, Jim Rhodes, really) wore it pretty extensively if memory serves me right.

What helped the IM movies a LOT was the costume itself. IM's armor is theoretically possible and therefore, doesn't look stupid. Armor looks far more realistic than wearing spandex.

The only hero who wears spandex (and can make it work) is Spider-Man. He's supposed to be agile and flexible so wearing a light costume makes sense. His costume didn't look too stupid for spandex, either.

Well the thing is making the armor look right. Sure, armor is more easy to believe than a bunch of guys running around in tight spandex - but making the armor look realistic and believable was the trick. Thankfully CGI is so far advanced that this was very easy (I imagine) to do and really make Iron Man do very well in the theaters (because it wasn't usually an actor flailing about in fake armor, but some very awesome CGI).

I've never been interested in Thor. In fact, the majority of the Avengers never did a whole lot for me. I feel differently with Marvel's "Ultimate" line, in which the Avengers are really interesting. I particularly like the fact that Captain America acts like a person, instead of a walking WWII recruitment poster.

We are so far on the polar opposite on this one. So. Very. Far.
I despite Ultimates. And I tried to give it a try. All of the titles that initially launched. Ultimates. Ultimate X-Men. Ultimate Spider-Man. One by one, they dropped off my list. I realize that they are a different universe and everything - but they essentially took the core of the story that was a part of the "REGULAR" Marvel Universe and made it "darker" - and perhaps "more realistic" - but I don't read comics for realism. Just the opposite, really. So these Avengers were nothing like the ones I was used to - they were just perverted, darker, more twisted versions. I mean, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have a relationship (brother and sister?) - just basically taking Quicksilver's devotion to his sister (in regular Marvel) and twisting it to their own skanky needs.

[Tawmis]

Sorry to break this up into two posts (notice the difference in time! Hooray for work distracting me from finishing!)

DC
As for DC, my favorite is Batman. Once again, I liked the character a lot before the recent movies (including Tim Burton's Batman). My opinion of the character changed a lot when I read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Miller's conception of Batman was radically different from the way Batman had been portrayed before (much of which owes its blame to the 1960s Batman TV show).

I think my only real problem with BATMAN is that he never loses. Like. Ever. Yes, his family died. Yes, I can't count how many Robin's have died. But when it's Batman vs someone... (Killing Joke aside) - the dude doesn't lose. I even got a very good laugh out of it in MORTAL KOMBAT VS DC... when you do the story mode and "beat" Batman... guess what? You don't. Batman plays possum and kicks your arse, even after the fight is done.

(That aside, it's still a very fun game...)

Superman is okay too, but I think DC has been screwing him up again. In the 1980s, after DC had its Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, I thought Superman was cool. They had reduced his power levels (he was still one of the most powerful guys in DC, but he couldn't go around juggling planets anymore), changed the way his invulnerability worked and made him a little less boyscout-like. I think DC is now reverting back to the old Pre-Crisis days, unfortunately.

Yeah, someone who can make the Earth's rotation go in reverse by flying around in the Earth's orbit - and thus... turn back time?

Superman is awesome for his icon status. As a comic, I never got into him. I was like, "So the only thing that beats Superman is this alien stone from some distant planet that's nowhere near our galaxy? How is anything or anyone going to be a challenge to him?"

It looks like the new GL movie will have Hal Jordan in it and end up pretty piss poor too.

So because it's Hal Jordan in the movie, you think it's going to suck? Hrm. I'd have to disagree on that thesis. Because, Wolverine, who way back in the early 80's - I loved - is now a character I can barely tolerate. Because he's everywhere. He has like four titles of his own (not kidding). He's in X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, as a regular team member. He's in the New Avengers as a core team member. And he's frequently in his "son's" comic, "Dark Wolverine." I am so sick and tired of Wolverine - but he's Marvel's current cash cow. Now, based on that theory that the Green Latern movie will suck because it's Hal Jordan... I would have believed the Wolverine movie to suck... because, well, it's an entire movie focused on Wolverine. However, it turns out I actually LOVED the Wolverine movie (except the end with what they did to Deadpool, which makes absolutely no freaking sense - and admittedly is what nearly ruined the entire movie for me... and I am not even a huge Deadpool fan!) But the thing is - it wasn't nearly ruined because it was a Wolverine movie. It was because of bad writing at the end, on Deadpool.

I am willing to give the Green Latern movie a shot. Somewhere else I was just in a discussion how someone's upset that Lord of the Rings characters (from the movies) will be appearing in "The Hobbit" movie. Now, "The Hobbit" is perhaps one of the - if not the biggest - influence on my life (other than family) - because it opened my eyes to fantasy - and made me want to become a writer (not to be confused with a rambler, which I am doing righ tnow!) and opened the door to D&D and everything else like that. So if anyone's going to be "critical" of THE HOBBIT, I would be - but you know what they made drastic changes to LORD OF THE RINGS and it came out all right. I love the LOTR movies.

Of course, I could be eating my own words when it comes out, and they could make a prequel nightmare similar to STAR WARS...

[gumby]

Oh, man I think one of my first GL comics was with Hal Jordan (and Eclipso). I loved it. I always think of Hal when it comes to to GL. Can't wait till that one comes out.

My title was definitely Spider-man. I entered pretty much right before 'The End Of The Red Suit' storyline (mid 80's?). I don't think I can't convey what drew me to books, but the writing & storylines seemed oh, so good.

Unfortunately, I've dropped comics entirely (about 15 years ago or so). I gave them all away to charity a few months ago (about 5K of em). Gives me a huge smile that hopefully someone will get the same enjoyment out of them that I did.

But the ideas, values & nostalgia stay with me. Probably will forever.

[DeadPoolX]

And if you enjoyed that armor set from IRON MAN, did you ever read West Coast Avengers back in the 90's? He (well, Jim Rhodes, really) wore it pretty extensively if memory serves me right.

I remember the West Coast Avengers, but I don't recall Rhodes serving with them as Iron Man. I know he did as War Machine, but he last used the normal IM suit in the late 1970s, when Stark was an alcoholic.

We are so far on the polar opposite on this one. So. Very. Far.
I despite Ultimates. And I tried to give it a try.

I know realism isn't exactly what comics go for (or at least most of them), but I thought the Ultimates line was simply more interesting. I absolutely love Captain America's character there, whereas I think he's annoying in the regular Marvel line. Thor wasn't some Norse god knockoff who speaks half-assed Shakespearean English, but instead a mental patient who believes he is the God of Thunder. What's awesome is that later on... he was right.

Who knows, maybe my interest in the Ultimates line comes from that, when it started, it was a blank slate. No baggage left over from previous decades.

I think my only real problem with BATMAN is that he never loses. Like. Ever. Yes, his family died. Yes, I can't count how many Robin's have died. But when it's Batman vs someone... (Killing Joke aside) - the dude doesn't lose. I even got a very good laugh out of it in MORTAL KOMBAT VS DC... when you do the story mode and "beat" Batman... guess what? You don't. Batman plays possum and kicks your arse, even after the fight is done,

I take it you haven't read many Batman comics. If you had, you'd know he's lost before and sometimes, quite a bit.

I can easily think of three distinct situations where Batman lost:

1. When the second Robin (Jason Todd) was beaten to death by the Joker.

2. When the first Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) was shot and paralyzed from the waist up. For added impact, the Joker rang Gordon's doorbell and when she appeared, he shot her point blank. Gordon is STILL in a wheelchair.

3. Probably the most obvious is Knightfall. To sum it up, all of the prisoners escaped Arkham Asylum and although Batman was able to round them up, he'd gone days without sleep and was physically and mentally exhausted. That's when he fought Bane, who broke Batman's back. Obviously he's not crippled today, but he spent a long time in a wheelchair.

So because it's Hal Jordan in the movie, you think it's going to suck?

Tawmis, you obviously misunderstood me. While I don't really care for Hal Jordan, he isn't the reason I think the movie will fail. From everything I've read and seen -- from the special effects to the costumes to the story -- the movie looks like it'll stink. Maybe I'll be wrong, but somehow I doubt I am.

[Tawmis]

Oh, man I think one of my first GL comics was with Hal Jordan (and Eclipso). I loved it. I always think of Hal when it comes to to GL. Can't wait till that one comes out.

Aye, I am eagerly awaiting it as well. The wife is even eagerly awaiting it... mostly because of WHO is playing Green Lantern. But if it gets her to go to the movie with me, so be it.

My title was definitely Spider-man. I entered pretty much right before 'The End Of The Red Suit' storyline (mid 80's?). I don't think I can't convey what drew me to books, but the writing & storylines seemed oh, so good.

Ah, so you popped in after SECRET WARS (the first one), where Spider-Man gets the black and white costume (now mostly associated with Venom... Or Anti-Venom, as I believe he's called these days)...

Unfortunately, I've dropped comics entirely (about 15 years ago or so). I gave them all away to charity a few months ago (about 5K of em). Gives me a huge smile that hopefully someone will get the same enjoyment out of them that I did.
But the ideas, values & nostalgia stay with me. Probably will forever.

That's awesome. My original plan was to pass it to my kids, but that, as fate would have it shall not be the plan. So I would, ideally, pass them on to my nephews or their kids.

I remember the West Coast Avengers, but I don't recall Rhodes serving with them as Iron Man. I know he did as War Machine, but he last used the normal IM suit in the late 1970s, when Stark was an alcoholic.

Aye, Rhodes was posing as Stark, and even in your favorite armor, no less.

Edit - Even found a reference to it in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Avengers
The team is founded by the Avenger Hawkeye in response to a suggestion by android fellow Avenger the Vision, who at the time wished to expand Avengers influence.[1] Hawkeye recruits Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra, and Iron Man, with the last actually being Jim Rhodes as opposed to Tony Stark, a fact initially unknown to the team.

That was during the 4 issue limited series, that was the prelude to kicking off the actual series.

Man. Comics were good back then...

Who knows, maybe my interest in the Ultimates line comes from that, when it started, it was a blank slate. No baggage left over from previous decades.

Certainly not knocking your tastes, because everyone's different. I love and enjoy tons of obscure characters, for example Adam-X (which, the profile I wrote up, they even used at Marvel.com) - and most people would be like, "Adam-Who? X-Treme-What?"

[DeadPoolX]

Aye, Rhodes was posing as Stark, and even in your favorite armor, no less.

Edit - Even found a reference to it in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Avengers
The team is founded by the Avenger Hawkeye in response to a suggestion by android fellow Avenger the Vision, who at the time wished to expand Avengers influence.[1] Hawkeye recruits Mockingbird, Wonder Man, Tigra, and Iron Man, with the last actually being Jim Rhodes as opposed to Tony Stark, a fact initially unknown to the team.

That was during the 4 issue limited series, that was the prelude to kicking off the actual series.

Man. Comics were good back then...

I had no idea Rhodes wore the Silver Centurion armor. Of course, I never kept up with the West Coast Avengers (or the normal Avengers, either).

[Tawmis]

More about the Thor movie.