Whoring out the company name.

It's fun right? Wrong...... Don't smother your kids.. (Scrubs reference).

Anyway, I wanted to take this opportunity to point out a conspiracy theory that I've had for a long time. No it's not about the government or extra-terrestials or the mafia or human cloning. This one has to do with a much larger scale with more at stake than you'll ever know:


The company that we've come to hate. I intentionally dropped the word 'comics' from the 'Marvel Comics' corporation title because comics tend to have some attributes associated with the word that aren't found to be associated with Marvel. Attributes such as: fun, engaging, and entertaining.

So why am I hating on Marvel? Aren't they the company that was responsible for great childhood memories such as comic books, videogames, the Hulk and Spiderman? Yeah they're definitely responsible for some great moments in time, and I'll acknowledge that. But a few good moments can't carry your career forever. That'd be like giving Screech from Saved by the Bell repeated television series to star in because of contribution to the Saved by the Bell series. It just ain't right. What we have to realize is that Marvel has had some breakthrough developments and ideas in the past, but you can only milk a cow so much before it starts to pee blood. Let's take a closer look.


Back in 1998 a little film called 'Blade' came out. No one had seen it coming at all, but the film became an instant hit overnight. This was partially because there weren't many advertisements out for the film at all and the character of Blade was largely unknown to the world (including Marvel Comics fans like myself). People didn't even figure out that it was a film based on a Marvel character until after watching the movie itself. This was a big win for all of the cast and crew involved in the movie and for Marvel itself because it demonstrated how big of a demand there was for a movie based on a comic book character (and an unknown one at that). Looking back, I like to think of this movie as Marvel's first big break into the film industry. Although it's obvious that Marvel did come out with movies before then, none of them had really struck gold.




Afte Blade, Marvel started to have access to big budget production companies like 20th Century Fox and New Line Cinemas. The success continued on with comic book movie titles such as X-Men, and Blade 2. After seeing how much potential there was in the market, Marvel began to pull out the big guns:

Spiderman is Marvel's biggest franchise name hands down. Not making any movies based on this series would be as foolish as DC not making any of their Batman or Superman films. Thankfully though, Marvel took the time and resources to make the movie right. They decided to go with a less known director and less renowned celebrities to cast the characters. Now it's not a secret that I hate Tobey Macguire to this day and resent the fact that he was casted to play Spiderman / Peter Parker. However, I will say that the movie did turn out extremely well besides a few of the casting choices and continuity errors. (no web fluid cartridges? oookay...)

After the first Spiderman was released, Marvel continued to churn out Superhero movies with a decent amount of success such as The Hulk, X2, Blade 2, and The Punisher. I know some people will argue with me, but I still consider The Punisher to be a good movie.

However, something happened during that same time that was out of character for Marvel. Despite pushing through a streak of hit movies, one movie proved to be the anamoly: Daredevil. No one quite knows how such a craptastic movie got made, but I have a few theories myself. I think Marvel wanted to see if they could cut the production time of finding the right cast, script, and director while still cashing on the Superhero aspect of the movie. With a cast of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, and Michael Clarke Duncan, you can tell they were trying to profit from the big celebrity buzz of the film. The results are debateable, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Daredevil was definitely no Spiderman which is a shame because I feel the character really got shafted out of what could have been something great. But this also proved to be the first step to Marvel's downfall.

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Marvel: "Well, looks close enough for me. Let's make a movie!

Shortly after The Punisher, Marvel was quick to release Spiderman 2. I like to consider this to be the peak of Marvel's movie making career as they enjoyed the most success with this film. Sadly enough though, no other good movies would ever be released. It's as if Marvel got greedy with all the profits they were making. So thought they could save some money by firing the person in charge of approving GOOD movie productions and instead, hire the freckled kid from the local bakery for the posision. This is where the shit hits the fan and they start to revert to the 'Daredevil Solution' by adding random celebrities.

And wouldn't you know it, they had to start making shit movies JUST when they were going to release the 3rd Blade installment. Nope, they couldn't let that series end with a bang, instead they add bullshit characters like Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel into the mix.

"But wait guys, whose he gonna fight now? "
Umm.................how about Gay Dracula?
"I was thinking Big Foot, but sure let's go with Gay Dracula!"

I mean really? You couldn't come up with anyone else except Gay Dracula? It's not bad enough that Blade ends up killing a legendary icon like Dracula, but you had to make him act gay as well huh? Wow...

Then you've got the rest of the killer line-up which don't even deserve a full description:

- Elektra:
Wait whose the villain here?
"I don't know, no one knows who the hell Elektra even is, she can fight...............the Japanese!" Doesn't something seem wrong here?
"It's okay, we'll patch up the script with a lesbian scene."
Deal...

- Fantastic Four: Daredevil solution written all over it. Except they didn't have enough money and didn't care enough to spring for all of the A-list celebrities, so they stopped at Alba.

- X-Men: The Last Stand: Don't even get me started with this movie. This movie is broken in so many ways. What a gong show..

- Ghostrider:
Alright we need someone whose wild and exciting to play the motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze not to mention a flaming skull riding a motorcycle. Who do we got?
"Ummm.............Nicholas Cage?"
Isn't he the guy who played that depressed forecaster in the Weatherman not to mention all of those other low key depressed characters?
"It's okay, we'll patch it up with a lesbian scene."
Wait didn't we already do that?
"Oh, right. Well then we'll just cast a hot chick, like Eva Mendez.."







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Brought to you by the same guys who brought you Daredevil.

- Spiderman 3: I've never hated a movie so much (although the Life Aquatic comes close). Again, so many things went wrong with this film: Venom was played by Topher Grace (really? how did this even happen? isn't venom supposed to be built?), and the entire jazz scene. Nothing hurts Sandman or keeps him down for the entire movie, oh except for some regular missiles that completely destroy him at the end of the movie for some unknown reason. And then there's his hospitalized daughter.

Oh okay, now I see why Sandman needs to rob banks, to pay for his daughter...
Uh oh, Spiderman stopped him at the end of the movie, what now?
Oh good, they're friends now!
But wait..................isn't his daughter still dying?
Doesn't that mean he still needs to pay for her by robbing more banks?
Roll credits.

- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Yeah.......enough said.


Anyway, my long drawn-out point is that Marvel doesn't make good movies anymore. You can't call it a slump or one time occurance when it happens for 6 movies in a row. What's happened is that everyone's jumped onto the Marvel bandwagon for movies, and they can just release whatever shit they want because they'll still make money. So they're pumping these movies out with half-assed scripts, horrible casting, and terrible attention to detail while everyone just eats it up. This is why I'm hoping that DC Comics picks up their game from some of the few successes they've had recently with Superman Returns and Batman Begins. It's like you learn in Economics: if there is no suitable competitors, then corporations aren't challenged to innovate better products and/or services, or in this case good movies.

This crap has also carried onto the video game scene for Marvel which I was hoping to highlight but maybe I'll leave that for another blog.