Marvel movies are good again?

I know, right?  I shocked myself.  After Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four:  Rise of the Silver Surfer, and X-men 3, I was pretty much done with life.  But I think Marvel has learned from their mistakes.  No, really.  Have you seen Thor?  That was wonderful (most likely because JMS had a hand in writing it).

This probably has a lot to do with Marvel appointing Joe Quesada to their new job of "Chief Creative Officer."  I know a lot of you hate Joe, but it's about time someone from the comics-side of things makes sure people don't get too crazy and make shit up (see above three movies.  I don't wanna talk about the first Incredible Hulk movie.  It never happened).

Maybe you're confused about why I hated those movies.  Maybe you've never read comics and would like to know why the nerd community complains about aforementioned films so much.  I will help you there.

Why Spider-Man 3 was an abomination 
Or, a lesson in why completely rewriting characters with immense histories kind of pisses people off. 

1.  Gwen Stacy
For those unfamiliar with the lore, Gwen Stacy was Peter Parker's first love.  She was a science major, intelligent, and tragically died at (arguably) Peter's hands.  The Green Goblin tossed her from a bridge, and Peter tried to save her via web, but she died because of his web.  It's cool, right? 

In the film, she's a stupid model.  Literally.  Sure, she goes to college, but she's in desperate need of Peter's tutoring.  She's barely even in the film.  I have no idea why she was even there.  What did she add?  Uhh, she was pretty.  And she made Mary Jane jealous and show her true colors as a detestable character.  Oh good, so what the film did was ruin a huge character in the history of comics AND make us hate one more than we already did.  Great.  Moving on.

Teehee!  I'm, like, a model, and like...yay!

2.  Sandman
As if destroying and totally rewriting Gwen's character wasn't enough, whoever was in charge of this abomination decided to totally rewrite Sandman, too.  They kept his origin the same, so high five there, guys.  You get a cookie.  But that's where the similarities to the real Sandman end.  You may remember the loveable villain with the terminally ill daughter that also killed Uncle Ben but he loved his daughter so much that you didn't care!  I hate to break it to you, but Sandman doesn't have a daughter.  He has nothing to do with Uncle Ben.  He became a supervillain because he got pissed at his school football coach, ended up in jail for beating the guy up, and then escaped to a nuclear plant with radioactive sand, got superpowers, and decided that a life of crime would be cool.  He does second-guess being evil for a little while, which I guess could be inspiration for whatever the hell they did with him in this movie.  Or maybe they just wanted to make up shit.

I'm only evil to save my dying child!  Pity me!

3.  Venom
Is supposed to be a bad-assingly terrifying thing that gives you nightmares, not a pussy crying about losing a girlfriend and a job.

He will eat you.

4.  Black Spider-Man
Someone somewhere got confused and thought the people paying him said "Emo Spider-Man," and it ended up staying in the film, black eye-liner included.

Life is pain.

5.  Pretty much everything else
Was there anything redeeming about this movie?  Teaching children the merits of forgiveness, I guess.  And that model-girlfriends are worth fighting for, even if they're not that smart.  Let's all hug each other as Sandman blows away into the wind, tears in our eyes, all sins forgiven.  Oh, forgiveness is so beautiful!

Yeah, no.

Now, any Thor-haters out there are probably itching to point out that there were many changes made to the lore.  Okay, Thor isn't a doctor, but there was a nice nod given to that.  He was Donald Blake for some of the movie, and you know it made you smile.  Much of the Thor comics nowadays deal with Thor knowing he's a God, so why take that away?  Also, Jane being a physicist instead of a nurse is a welcome change because, yknow, women can be physicists now.  The changes aren't drastic, totally-made-up-out-of-left-field changes, like giving someone a random terminally ill daughter and inserting him into another character's origin story just so you can rant about forgiveness.  Ehem.  



Stay tuned for my next posts on why Fantastic Four: RotSS and X-men 3 were also utter abominations.

<3!



(The hilarious emo .gif was taken lovingly from here).