Comic Book Movies

[Spark Of Spirit]

That was WAY better than I was expecting. It looks nothing like the awful comic or an Iron Man Vs Captain America movie, but like the sequel to Winter Soldier building up to an epic conclusion.

If this pans out it will be the best superhero trilogy without a doubt.

He started out as a "meh" entry in Phase 1, then he gets the best movie in Phase 2, and now...

The First Avenger was the best part of Phase 1 besides the original Iron Man.

It WAS the best phase 1 movie. If any of you guys haven't seen it since it came out, I highly recommend rewatching it. You might be surprised by how well it holds up.

[Avaitor]

Well, I wasn't expecting to be on team Iron Man, but it looks like I am.

Hell of a trailer, btw.

[gunswordfist]

Iron Man looks like the jerk in this (again), if that's what you mean.

[Foggle]

Almost done with Jessica Jones! I don't think I can watch more than two episodes of this at once. It's too intense, my heart can't take it.

Go watch AEMH and read Ed Brubaker's Captain America run, in that case. It'll make you an even bigger fan.

Literally the only good part of Civil War was The Death of Captain America story-line by Brubaker, from what I've read.

Can do.

The Cable & Deadpool part of Civil War was really good too, but it also had pretty much nothing to do with Civil War at all, so...

It WAS the best phase 1 movie. If any of you guys haven't seen it since it came out, I highly recommend rewatching it. You might be surprised by how well it holds up.

It really was. I don't understand why Captain America is considered "the weakest Phase 1 film" by most people; it's far and away the best one, for me.

Iron Man looks like the jerk in this (again)

I think that's basically his entire character at this point.

[gunswordfist]

That was my joke.

I do think Captain America was kind of average (only watched it once though) but I still liked it and I don't see how anyone can say it's the worst part of phase one or even to that. Since I fucking love Winter Soldier so much, I want to get around to a 2nd viewing. Also, I need to rewatch Iron Man (again, only saw it once) since it was my favorite MCU anything.

Also, once I get access back to it, I'm finishing Jessica Jones. I love her snarky ass.

[Daikun]

Just so we're clear: I don't think of the Cap as the weakest Phase 1 film. That "honor" would be a tie between Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk.

I agree with gsf. For me, The First Avenger was middle-of-the-road.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It really was. I don't understand why Captain America is considered "the weakest Phase 1 film" by most people; it's far and away the best one, for me.

I think it has a lot to do with expectations. Based on the trailers, I think that most people were expecting an action-packed WWII-themed superhero movie. It certainly delivered on the latter aspect of the previews, but was actually pretty tame with its overall lack of huge set-piece action scenes compared to the other superhero movies. The parts shown in the trailer were very misleading of the tone of the actual movie, as most of those scenes were literally just montage clips during one part of the film. The trailer was certainly deceitful, but I can hardly blame the film itself for that; just the people in charge of marketing it.

If one looks into why Marvel hand-picked Joe Johnston to direct this movie in the first place, though, they'd probably get a better understanding of what this film really is. Joe Johnston directed a somewhat obscure yet well-beloved cult classic comic book film in the early 90's called The Rocketeer. It was based on a comic book that was essentially a throwback and amalgamation of all of the charm and heart of those WWII-era golden-age adventure serials. Joe Johnston may not exactly be a consistent director (Jurassic Park III and The Wolfman remake were awful, IMO), but he was always at his best when just making movies that captured an innocent spirit of fun, adventure, and above all else, had a ton of heart to it. That's where films like the original Honey I Shrunk The Kids, October Sky, and of course The Rocketeer come in.

Captain America: The First Avenger is not a superhero action film, and was never intended to be one. It's a tribute to golden-age idealistic adventure stories, and the film excels at that, IMO. Johnston himself admitted to not having read any Captain America comic books prior to making this film, but stated that it gave him the opportunity to portray the character and his story from an unbiased perspective, much in the same way that Bryan Singer did for the X-Men movies (who also never actually read any of the comic books prior to directing the first film). What I find to be so brilliant and also so underrated about The First Avenger, myself, is how it really does nail that heart and soul of what that era of comics represented at their best. For instance, it was a brilliant writing and directing decision to have Captain America in the movies start out as he did in real life with the comic books: as WWII propaganda. In that regard, it does sneakily acknowledge the fact that the character's original conception wasn't built around all of the most noble intentions, but in the form of the movie it's a very clever way to introduce the concept of the character, which by all accounts is absolutely ridiculous, but in this case it's actually supposed to come off that way to the audience at the start. Over time, Captain America earns his iconic status through his actions and adapting to serve a greater purpose, in this case sort of symbolizing the evolution of the character in the comic books, from my interpretation.

Now you could make the argument that the movie should have explored more of the racism and social injustices that were abundant in many of Cap's earlier issues (which may have been considered acceptable back then, but definitely not by today's standards), but as I said, the point of this film specifically, much like The Rocketeer, was to capture the tone of these sorts of comics when they were at their best. Looking at the movie from that point of view, I find that it's an incredibly fun and heartfelt story of a great man trapped in a physically weak body getting the opportunity to prove himself to the world, which is an idealistic sort of story that isn't too popular with most of today's jaded and cynical comic book fans and moviegoers, but IMO is handled really well with the intention of showing just why those sorts of stories were considered great in the first place. And it's because of this very set-up that the breakdown of all of Cap's ideals in The Avengers films and The Winter Soldier (and hopefully in the upcoming Civil War) make for great drama, IMO. The First Avenger did such a good job of settings those things up that it really hits hard when they fall apart.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoy The First Avenger because it's just a really entertaining movie that I believe excels at what it sets out to do. It's not great as an action movie, but as a WWII-themed adventure film with great character development from its lead, I personally find it to be one of the MCU's more interesting pictures, and that's saying a lot since I'm clearly a big fan of the MCU to begin with.

Iron Man looks like the jerk in this (again)

I think that's basically his entire character at this point.

To be fair, I'm interested in seeing RDJ's portrayal of the character in this film because it actually feels like he's intentionally being written to be antagonistic in a genuinely interesting way. I feel that Tony Stark in the MCU is a pretty poorly written character after the first Iron Man. It's like the writers didn't know what to do with him after Iron Man 1 became such a hit, so they have to make up cheap sub-plots to add fake dramatic stakes and tension (such as Tony Stark slowly dying in IM2), or they just have to invent a new problem for him out of the blue like his PTSD from The Battle of New York after The Avengers, in IM3, which really felt laughably inconsistent given how their was clearly no hint of this in The Avengers to begin with, and thus it really makes no sense when the problem is presented to us viewers all of a sudden in the third Iron Man movie. Other than that, they just have him act like an arrogant dick most of the time while missing the point of how he was also likable despite all of that in the first movie. The thing that made Tony Stark such a memorable and fun character past the original film is RDJ's excellent performance. Without that, I feel that the flaws of the writing in Tony Stark's MCU character would be much more apparent.

Another thing that I like about Captain America as a character in the MCU is that he clearly has a consistent character arc running throughout all of the MCU films, so watching the movies in order allows you to trace his development over the films quite smoothly.

Having said that, going by the trailer to Civil War, I get a sense that whether we end up liking or agreeing with Tony Stark in this movie or not, we'll at least get a sense of why his character has his stance and not actively want to hate him for opposing The Cap. That line about Cap protecting Bucky because he's his friend, and Tony Stark in a definitive way of breaking off his former comradery with Rogers, but also seemingly showing some signs of being hurt by doing that, replies: "So was I." To me that's the highlight of the trailer, and gets me to believe that the writers aren't simply just going to make Tony an arrogant ass-hole in this movie, but an opposing force with his own legitimate, justified viewpoints.

[Foggle]

Great post!

Johnston himself admitted to not having read any Captain America comic books prior to making this film

This is pretty surprising to me. Honestly, of all the live action superhero films I've seen, I'd say The First Avenger is the one that feels most like the comic book it's based on (though Guardians of the Galaxy comes close, and Deadpool probably will too). It just has the heart and soul of what made classic comics great.

To be fair, I'm interested in seeing RDJ's portrayal of the character in this film because it actually feels like he's intentionally being written to be antagonistic in a genuinely interesting way. I feel that Tony Stark in the MCU is a pretty poorly written character after the first Iron Man. It's like the writers didn't know what to do with him after Iron Man 1 became such a hit, so they have to make up cheap sub-plots to add fake dramatic stakes and tension (such as Tony Stark slowly dying in IM2), or they just have to invent a new problem for him out of the blue like his PTSD from The Battle of New York after The Avengers, in IM3, which really felt laughably inconsistent given how their was clearly no hint of this in The Avengers to begin with, and thus it really makes no sense when the problem is presented to us viewers all of a sudden in the third Iron Man movie. Other than that, they just have him act like an arrogant dick most of the time while missing the point of how he was also likable despite all of that in the first movie. The thing that made Tony Stark such a memorable and fun character past the original film is RDJ's excellent performance. Without that, I feel that the flaws of the writing in Tony Stark's MCU character would be much more apparent.

. . .

Having said that, going by the trailer to Civil War, I get a sense that whether we end up liking or agreeing with Tony Stark in this movie or not, we'll at least get a sense of why his character has his stance and not actively want to hate him for opposing The Cap. That line about Cap protecting Bucky because he's his friend, and Tony Stark in a definitive way of breaking off his former comradery with Rogers, but also seemingly showing some signs of being hurt by doing that, replies: "So was I." To me that's the highlight of the trailer, and gets me to believe that the writers aren't simply just going to make Tony an arrogant ass-hole in this movie, but an opposing force with his own legitimate, justified viewpoints.

Yeah, I agree with all this. The Civil War trailer is the first time I've found Iron Man interesting since his first movie. It's such a shame that they allegedly chickened out of making Iron Man 3 an adaptation of Demon In A Bottle; that would have been brilliant, IMO. I mean, I guess Iron Man 2 already kind of was, but they did such a bad job with that aspect of it, and his returning PTSD in IM3 and Age of Ultron kind of implies that there was originally supposed to be something more there.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Good post, doc!

The conflict of the modern world and Cap's ideals wouldn't have worked nearly as well if the First Avenger wasn't as strong as it was. In fact, that's why the end of the second movie when Cap's ideals turn out to still be valid and inspiring despite the very bad situation and different times they're all in, and the return of an enemy long thought dead, works so incredibly well. Part of the reason both movies are still so strong is because they play so hard off of the other one (even though First Avenger couldn't do that, it still managed to date that way) and makes them perfect companions to each other. I mean, without the first movie I don't think the last scenes with Bucky would have been anywhere near as strong.

Which is why this trailer looks so good. It looks like its building up the conflict Steve has had inside himself since the First Avenger and that nearly came to a head in Winter Soldier. Then there are the other characters like Black Widow, Falcon, and Winter Soldier, and probably Nick Fury, that were surprisingly changed by the events of Winter Soldier and now have just as tough choices as Cap to make here. If this continues in the right way, it could easily be the best film in the trilogy and maybe the MCU. And that's saying a lot.

[Avaitor]

One thing to consider about Iron Man here is that it's believed that the Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents. So he may actually have a motive for his stance.

[Spark Of Spirit]

One thing to consider about Iron Man here is that it's believed that the Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents. So he may actually have a motive for his stance.

That's a good point. Though it could have easily been Hydra operating on its own, it could have been Bucky that did it. There's a whole history there that hasn't been touched on since Winter Soldier.

We all know Hydra has to have a role in all this movie. The question is where they fit in.

[Foggle]

For some reason I thought they basically destroyed Hydra at the beginning of Ultron, but that couldn't be the case, right?

[Spark Of Spirit]

For some reason I thought they basically destroyed Hydra at the beginning of Ultron, but that couldn't be the case, right?

"Cut off one head and two more will take its place."

It wouldn't be that easy. Plus, I think they at least made a cameo in Ant-Man.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Thanks for the comments on my post, guys!

As for Civil War, while I'm glad that the movie isn't going to be a direct adaptation of the comic book, I wouldn't mind if in some way it takes some inspiration from the source material in which:

Spoiler

Bucky inherits the mantle and title of Captain America by the end of the movie. That doesn't necessarily mean that Steve Rogers has to die like he does in the comic book, but his main character arc could reach its ultimate conclusion by the end of this film, and having him pass the torch onto his oldest war-partner and best friend would be a really rewarding thing to see, IMO. I also like how Tony Stark, out of his deep respect for and friendship with Captain America, despite being on an opposing side, is the one who ultimately helped to turn Bucky around and set him on the right path, as Steve would have wished for. To me, it was a small bit of redemption for how generally horrible his character was during the whole Civil War arc.

[close]

If they do end up bringing the whole "The Winter Soldier killed Tony's parents" card into play, though, then I don't see the story taking that direction at all. I do get a feeling that regardless of the outcome of this movie, it will be somewhat tragic in some way compared to the usual upbeat nature of most MCU films.

[Foggle]

Spoiler

Personally, while I think the Bucky as Captain America thing will eventually happen in the MCU, I'd wager that it won't until during/after Infinity War. They might also make Falcon the new Captain America instead, since he currently is in the comics IIRC.

[close]