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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Saturday 10 June 2017

So...Ant Man, Dr Strange, The Vision and Black Panther....Comics or Movies?

I think I made it clear a long time ago just how relevant the Vision and Black Panther as well as Dr Strange were to me.  That copy of Avengers #61 (as far as I am concerned there is only one volume of Avengers that matters) I picked up...well, read about it here:
http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/avengers-or-justice-league-of-america.html

As a youngster...well, the Vision and Panther impacted on my imagination and that masked Dr Strange!  Did you know that if you are a real demon hunter or deal with denizens of the paranormal (NO. I am not going to debate this I am just making an established point) you should be masked so that they cannot see your face because of all the occult ramifications?  That is why Black Tower's Silvermaigne wears a mask.  So there.

Anyway, I have seen the movie, Ant Man which I was dreading.  I liked it. NOT the comic book Ant Man but it was fun and action and why emphasis was put on it being some kind of comedy I do not know.  Not unsurprisingly, Michael Douglas was good in it.

Then I watched Dr Strange. I read and heard it all before hand so I gritted my teeth. LOVED it. At no point did I start thinking "I cannot take this seriously -The Ancient One is a woman!!!" Again, based on the comic and a great action movie with some wonderful humour thrown in.


Okay, so when I saw The Vision in Avengers Age Of Ultron I thought...."uhhhh" but I warmed to him very quickly. I mean, WTF can't I hate anything anymore??? Even the sweater and slacks wearing was a nice touch which comes from the comics.  Yes, this is not the comic book Vision but he is played by Paul Bettany who is a very fine actor. So a thumbs up for this one.


Now we come to the one I was really worried about: The Black Panther played by Chadwick Boseman.  Okay, the outfit is not the original one but movie makers like their glitz and blah blah blah. The relief came when I realised that Boseman was a good actor.  Even the Panther suit looked okay but that the suit now allows the Panther to take machine gun fire....even if the vibranium it is made with took some of the impact he still aint going to be just standing there.  It's almost as though someone said "He isn't a super soldier and has no super powers....let's boost him up with a special suit!"



I have to say that I hope the CGI on the big screen looks better than on a large computer monitor. I do love the hand on heart to show just how much they "love" the character.  Seriously. We get it. He is...."black" so you want the SJWs happy.  That hand on heart sincerity thing just makes me cringe because it looks so false.

And Wakanda no longer a city underground but looking more like the Inhumans city of Attilan now.  Okay, I will accept that.  This is the movies after all. This does look like an interesting movie though so fingers crossed -unless you have arthritis...do NOT try to cross your fingers if you have!

The thing that has made these Marvel movies (I still have STRONG reservations about the whole Thor:Ragnarok movie) is that they have a set plan. Adaptable but a good plan. They also make the stories and events work without looking silly by employing some very fine actors. A pity that Quicksilver was killed off in one movie because he had all the prerequisites of being a real stucfk up pain in the ass -as the original comic book Quicksilver was.

I know I was asked, almost in shocked tones, "How can you like these movies if you are such a big fan of the original comic characters?"  Well, the answer was in the question. These are movies and characters "based on the comic book characters" -it's writ large up on the screen.

Just sit back and enjoy.  Life is short.  Read comics and enjoy them. Watch the movies and enjoy them. How many movie adaptions of literature do you think are even 75% "exactly like in the book" -think James Bond and I had read all the books by 1980 and even James Gardner's Colonel Sun, and let's be honest....James Bond being the main character is about it!

remember what Stan Lee wrote in the introduction to the original Kree-Skrull War trade (probably before most of you were born): "If this was a movie it would cost millions!"  Well, Stan has now seen the movies and, yes, it does cost millions!

Lighten up.

But I still think Guardians of the Galaxy isn't that good.

2 comments:

  1. I have never had a problem with the way comic characters were visualised on screen I think they would look silly in bright comic colour in many cases - but like yourself, Ant-Man, Vision and Doc Strange mean a lot to me (for a character) so I was more interested in them than most - my only issue was ANT-Man for me will always be Hank Pym but it was good to see they had Hank in the film - but I loved both films . I like the Guardians film (not seen Vol 2 yet) but for me the Guardians are the Marvel Presents 1976 group - but I have no real issues with how characters are presented on screen as a general rule.

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  2. Hi. Yes there are many people ~in my family,too, who LOVE Guardians! I think people need to realise that movie makers are NOT comic companies and they look at things a whole different way. I am VERY glad they had Hank Pym in the movie. Be interesting to see what happens next!

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