Marvel Universe (Thar be spoilers ahead.)

[Nevermore]

I expect even comic book artists to be able to understand basic human anatomy.  Leifeld clearly doesn't.  He's also a lazy artist.  Whether or not other comic book artists are also lazy and have no understanding of basic human anatomy is irrelevant.

LOOK AT THIS

[jgsugden]

Out of context... in the prior panel her spine was crushed by an I=beam.  Right?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I believe what he's saying is not that the art is good but that very few comic artists can be held under a microscope and come out clean.

[Bunk]

There's being under a microscope, and then there's just blatant disregard for human anatomy. He can't even be bothered when it comes to teeth:



What is that, 50+ teeth in that guy's mouth? If you don't want to try drawing teeth, don't draw a fricken closeup of a guy's mouth.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I agree that some of the complaints about his art was nitpicking, but there was a lot that was pure laziness and sloppy drawing.  The anatomy issues are the worst part, but stuff like never drawing feet (and when he does so, being bad at it), muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles, the perspective problems (e.g. thighs being larger than entire torsos), characters having headgear so he can give them crazy mohawk mullet hair... just really bad sloppy things like that. 

Going on about coloring choices or continuity mistakes - that gets nitpicky.  Unless Liefeld was the colorist too, then it's back to lazy and sloppy.  The design stuff.. I can overlook most of it because it was the 90s and that was the style that had become popular, largely because of Liefeld, though.

[Merusk]

Compare DC of the same era to Marvel/ Image and that says all you need to know.

Leifield is the problem.   DC was doing the same shadow tricks, dark ultra contrast/ crosshatched face and super gritty nonsense but the drawing was much better.  People were over-muscled but still respected anatomy.  Women were super-boobed but had intact spines and proportion was always there.

His is not "comic" style it is "Cartoon" which is entirely different and looked down upon because it takes less talent to do it.

[Tannhauser]

I used to hang out in a comic book shop back in the 90's and I can assure you everyone there ridiculed Liefield's 'art'.

[SurfD]

One of the best examples of the "lazy artist" syndrome thing in that rant was the one with the hair.  Two characters.  Two pages. Something like 6 individual pannels.  SIX PANNELS.  And BOTH of their fucking hair change in practically every single pannel.

That is utterly stupid level of bad right there.

[Evildrider]

Sooo.. Along with Amazing Spiderman 3 going into production not long after 2 comes out, they are spinning off both Venom and Sinister Six movies. 

I don't know what to think about that really.  I wasn't a big fan of the new Spiderman, I guess I'll have to see how the sequel goes.

[Khaldun]

At least some of this is driven by a desire to grab as much of the content that the IP allows. It's really amazing when you go back to the selling of Marvel's IP to the most recent franchise holders how little Marvel *or* the purchasers really valued it in relationship to its potential. But now that they've got what they've got and Marvel's main cinematic universe has become what it is, it's pretty clear that both the Spider-Man and X-Men holders are going to try and get everything on screen that they're potentially entitled to have.

At least until one or all of the holders make a stinky bomb that can't recoup any of its costs simply because it's a bad concept or idea. I wonder a lot about what a Sinister Six movie would be like. If all of the Six are Oscorp creations rather than a group of independent operators who come together for a single purpose, I'm not sure I see what the concept in there will be. Maybe a kind of Thunderbolts/Dirty Dozen/Suicide Squad thing, I suppose, where the Six are stuck in a situation where it's cooperate or die.

[jgsugden]

I'm still thinking that we'll have an announcement by 2020 that will put all of the Marvel Properties in one cinematic universe.  It is just a matter of negotiation and planning.  The properties are more valuable together than alone.  Disney is willing to deal (see Indiana Jones), so it is just a matter of time.  I think the current announcements about X-men, Spider-man, etc... films are as much about negotiation and planning as they are about carrying forward their franchises. 

[Evildrider]

Unless Marvel has it all under their wing, and is in control of choosing writers/directors/actors, I'd rather they remain separate.  I don't think it has anything to do with planning them all being together.  It's more about the other studios trying to mimic Marvel as much as possible.

[Ingmar]

but a lot of that looked perfectly fine. 

Well I for one think it is awesome that the US government is open minded enough to hire blind IT guys.

[CmdrSlack]

I don't have a problem with the movie as long as I pretend Ryan is Kyle Rayner  (a character I don't own a comic featuring). I just don't think he's a good Hal.

He's born to play Deadpool.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't have a problem with the movie as long as I pretend Ryan is Kyle Rayner  (a character I don't own a comic featuring). I just don't think he's a good Hal.

He's born to play Deadpool.

Just not weapon X

[jgsugden]

Ant-man.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/65504

[Velorath]

If you can't be bothered to link to the original source, at least don't link to fucking Aintitcool.

[jgsugden]

If you can't be bothered to link to the original source, at least don't link to fucking Aintitcool.

People complain about everything, here. The article isn't puff, and it mentioned the source. There is no reason to hate on it other than blind bitching.

[sickrubik]

It's all puff!

"Hey, we knew this already, plus we really like him! He's a good guy!"

[jgsugden]

It's all puff!

"Hey, we knew this already, plus we really like him! He's a good guy!"

Do you know what quotation marks represent?

[sickrubik]

"Yes."

To note, I've never really liked AICN. Especially because of Knowles. In the early days, my main movie haunt was Corona's Coming Attractions.

But that piece was pretty much the definition of Puff, with the only theoretical part of it being based off of Faraci's (Bad Ass Digest) comments.

[Velorath]

If you can't be bothered to link to the original source, at least don't link to fucking Aintitcool.

People complain about everything, here. The article isn't puff, and it mentioned the source. There is no reason to hate on it other than blind bitching.

Not only is the article almost completely puff, it also neglects to mention that the Wrap's confirmation comes from sources of theirs and that Marvel and Rudd's representatives have not officially announced it and are not commenting on the story. Also it's just common courtesy to link to the people who wrote the original story so they get the traffic.

[UnSub]

The properties are more valuable together than alone. 

To who though? It adds value to Disney, but that doesn't benefit Fox or Sony. The deal will come when either Fox or Sony either thinks there is no value left in keeping the licences separate.

Having different studios behind the different franchises potentially means more films get made. If Disney had a stake in all of them they aren't going to release an X-Men, Spider-Man and Avengers film in the same year because the costs would be very high. They'd stick to one or two Marvel films a year to maximise exposure and ROI.

[jgsugden]

The properties are more valuable together than alone. 

To who though? It adds value to Disney, but that doesn't benefit Fox or Sony. The deal will come when either Fox or Sony either thinks there is no value left in keeping the licences separate.

If the value to Disney was 2X, to Sony was 2X and Fox is 2X for their individually licensed components, but the value if you combined them was 7X, then it is just a matter of negotiation.  They can each come out ahead.  The only real sticking point is getting people to agree to valuations. 

Having different studios behind the different franchises potentially means more films get made. If Disney had a stake in all of them they aren't going to release an X-Men, Spider-Man and Avengers film in the same year because the costs would be very high. They'd stick to one or two Marvel films a year to maximise exposure and ROI.

I disagree.  Marvel, before Disney, had to be very careful with the pocketbook.  However, after Disney, they have deep reserves.  So, funding a movie is not a problem if they believe it will be profitable. 

When the studio looks at when to make movies and how to make movies, a limiting factor is whether you're going to burn out the audience by having too many similar films out within a given period.  That issue has nothing to do with the studio making the films.  Marvel currently has to consider X-men, Spider-man, and DC film projects when deciding how many of their own films to make just as much as if they were the ones making those films. 

I firmly believe that if Marvel were able to terminate all of those licensing agreements and get back all of those rights, they'd be making 4 films a year within 2 years - plus a few TV series, even with DC making films and tv series, too.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Negotiating such a huge deal when the super hero bubble is close to popping would be a terrible business decision. 

[Tannhauser]

What evidence do you have to make that claim?

[jgsugden]

The Super Hero bubble is a lot like the Star Wars bubble - it will have dips, but they're going to have resurgences, too.  Disney is going to be making Marvel films for a long time.  That is opinion, but I am pretty darn sure I'm right.  I expect them to reboot the MCU at some point, and they may take a few years off while rebooting, but the whole machine has a long ways to go before that happens.

Some might argue that Marvel's best strategy is a short term strategy: Make 10 films a year for a few years - and get people burnt out on Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Defenders, etc...  At the same time they're getting burnt out on the Disney stuff, they'll be burning out on Spider-man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and DC properties.  Nobody will be in a good position to make quality films and we'll go into a fallow period for Superhero film - during which time the rights to more Marvel characters would revert to Disney.  Then they could reboot the entire thing and plan to include all of their properties.

And negotiating a huge deal can be done at any point if it is done right.  The key is to understand the positions and needs of the parties.  It isn't like Marvel would just hand over a large check to the other studios.  There would be profit participation involved, etc... 

[Lakov_Sanite]

That's a lot of wishful thinking with no real evidence to support it.  I'm not saying it's false but there's no way to know whether super heroes movies will sustain.  All we do know is that movie bubbles do exist and eventually pop as people get burnt out and move to different things.

[sickrubik]

When talking about these things, it's important to look beyond "movies" too, just to be fair. Cartoons, comics, theme park stuff, toys, flamthrowers, etc.

[jgsugden]

When talking about these things, it's important to look beyond "movies" too, just to be fair. Cartoons, comics, theme park stuff, toys, flamthrowers, etc.

No, the throwing of flam NEVER goes out of style.

Since 1978, we've seen about one film every other year with a major Superhero in it.  Around 2000 it picked up to an average of 3+ per year.    It is accelerating, and has been going on longer than most of the readers on this board have been alive.  Although some argue that the best way for Marvel to get their properties back is to flood the market, I personally believe it will be hard to do.  I think you could do one major Superhero movie a month and not crush the market.  I'm not saying all comics fans would see all movies, but if done well, their is enough material and interest for them all to be profitable.  yes, you might undercut the profits of the next Avengers by having 12 superhero films before it in the year, but I think you can make up for that dip with the profits from the other ones. You've got 5 major comic book based movies in 2014 (including TMNT) and 2015 has at least 3 plus at least 6 Superhero TV series planned to be on TV around that time.

I just don't see a bubble bursting.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The real indicator will be the tier 2-3 superheroes that marvel is going to start putting out and how well those movies do compared to the big names.

[MahrinSkel]

When talking about these things, it's important to look beyond "movies" too, just to be fair. Cartoons, comics, theme park stuff, toys, flamthrowers, etc.

No, the throwing of flam NEVER goes out of style.

Since 1978, we've seen about one film every other year with a major Superhero in it.  Around 2000 it picked up to an average of 3+ per year.    It is accelerating, and has been going on longer than most of the readers on this board have been alive.  Although some argue that the best way for Marvel to get their properties back is to flood the market, I personally believe it will be hard to do.  I think you could do one major Superhero movie a month and not crush the market.  I'm not saying all comics fans would see all movies, but if done well, their is enough material and interest for them all to be profitable.  yes, you might undercut the profits of the next Avengers by having 12 superhero films before it in the year, but I think you can make up for that dip with the profits from the other ones. You've got 5 major comic book based movies in 2014 (including TMNT) and 2015 has at least 3 plus at least 6 Superhero TV series planned to be on TV around that time.

I just don't see a bubble bursting.

*This* time is different.

You can flog anything into the ground, and movies are notorious for it.  It doesn't matter how many Superhero movies a year the market could sustain indefinitely, the industry will blow past that mark and make so many even the most die-hard geek is saying "Another Batman reboot already?  WTF, the Justin Bieber version was just a few years ago."

--Dave

[sickrubik]

Uh. My comments had nothing to do with a perceived "bubble", just pointing out that any deal Disney would want picking up the other parts would not just be about the movies. It was not an argument for or against some bubble.

[jgsugden]

I was replying to several concepts that were related. 

And note that Marvel is not making the same superhero movie over and over.  Cap II is essentially a political thriller.  Guardians of the Galaxy is a sci-fi story.  Thor II was a war movie.  IM III was nothing like IM I or IM II.  They're not retreading the same ground just because they take place in the same universe and involve costumed characters.

The other studios are also aware that you need to shake things up.  The Wolverine is significantly different compared to the prior 4 Wolverine films.  The reworked the Amazing Spider-man films to distance them from the prior trilogy.

[Merusk]

I don't know why you guys keep arguing with him. It was apparent several pages ago he's a true believer in the idea that superhero movies will never die or get stale. That the current state is how movies will be for evah!