Jun
2
I meant to blog yesterday, but I got caught up in working on my script. Yes, I’ve finally begun writing something. Rewriting, actually. Last Friday, I dug out one of my old scripts — “Double-O Zombie” — and started rewriting it from page one. The plot remains the same, but I’m stripping away the big blocks of text — scene descriptions that just go on and on and on. The second draft will have much in the way of “white space.” There’s also a snazzier opening sequence, as the hero has to disarm a nuclear bomb that’s plummeting towards Washington DC.
Filmmakers are lazy sonsabitches. They don’t like reading scripts. They don’t like reading, period. In fact they hire people called “readers” to read scripts for them. Readers don’t like reading scripts, either, believe it or not. A script is a bitch-kitty to read. It doesn’t engage you like a novel or provide visual aids like a comic book. It’s scene descriptions and dialogue. The format is weird-looking, too. Contemporary scripts have done away with shot descriptions, but they’re still not the easier things in the world to get into.
So, how do you write a script for someone who doesn’t even like reading? Well, you make sure it’s heavy on the white space. The less a reader has to actually read, the more he’ll like your script. What’s more, why should I waste time explicating the mise-en-scene when some douchebag is going to be called in to rewrite my script anyway? It’s best to simply put down a few sentences about what happens in the scene and move on to the next one. I banged out over 15 pages last weekend — ten on Saturday alone!
I’d been revising that damn scene where the hero disarms a nuclear bomb at 30,000 feet for a couple of years. Each time, I hated how it came out. It was because I wrote pages upon pages of text, providing all this unnecessary explanation about a few simple actions. Meanwhile, I was neglecting the fact that some director will hire a storyboard artist to obsess over the intricacies of the scene. This is of course after an uncredited rewrite will have been performed on my script, doubtless changing the dramatic beats in that scene anyway.
Now I’m about 20 pages into the script. My original goal was to knock out at least three a day. That would mean I’d have a completed script in about a month. I’ve been averaging about five a day, so I might be done sooner. The script is an embarrassment of riches. Once you get past all the bloat, there are some awesome sequences. I cannot wait to get to part where the hero explodes out of a shark’s guts and tears a group of skin divers apart. That bit’s like putting “Jaws,” “Alien” and Fulci’s “Zombi 2″ into a blender and hitting the button marked “ZOMG!”
I’ll try to keep up on my blog as I work on my script. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of dumb bullshit going on in the entertainment world for me to bitch and moan about, like readers who don’t like reading. That in and of itself is worthy of its own entry.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
28
“The Mutant Chronicles” Review
Filed Under Cult Films, Fanwank, Indies, Movies | Leave a Comment
I should’ve known better than to see another movie with the word “Chronicles” in the title. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was too hung up on the word “Mutant” to care what noun it was modifying. I love the word “mutant.” It should be pretty hard to screw up a movie with mutants in it. I mean, how bad could a movie called “The Mutant Chronicles” actually be? Well, I found out!
“The Mutant Chronicles,” which sounds like a newspaper for the hideously deformed, is apparently based on a role-playing game — a big red flag there. Had I known the film’s origins were some pencil and paper RPG, I’d have steered clear. Even I don’t waste time with role-playing games, and I like some geeky shit. I mean, I went out of my way to get Joan Severance’s autograph last weekend because I own “Black Scorpion” on DVD. But I digress.
At any rate, the film is set in the 28th century, something I gathered from the poster, not the lengthy voiceover — another red flag — at the top of the film. Tom Jane plays a soldier in a privatized army that’s engaged in trench warfare with another privatized army on the Eastern European border. During a sequence that should not be used as a good example for how to maintain screen direction, one army or the other breaks open this giant manhole cover in the earth and unleashes a horde of mutants. The mutants then carve up most of the soldiers with their scimitar-shaped right hands. Tom Jane’s character manages to escape, so he can be doughy and brooding for the remainder of the film.
Ron Perlman plays a monk or something with encyclopedic knowledge of the mutants and their mutant-making machine, a device that’s kept underground and needs to be destroyed or else there would be no movie. Although Earth’s being evacuated, Perlman’s character inexplicably assembles a team of ragtag soldiers, including Jane’s character, to destroy the mutants’ Easy Bake Oven. It should be pointed out that I had no idea the machine turned people into mutants until late in the film when Jane’s character falls into it, but manages to easily escape. He’s sort of a half-mutant from that point on. Oh, and the way you destroy the machine is by putting a bomb in a relief that’s been specifically carved into the machine for someone to put a bomb.
The movie was shot on a digital backlot, but unlike “Sin City” or “300,” it’s uglier than that Scottish woman who looks like Colm Meaney but can sing really well. All the money the filmmakers saved on building sets they instead pissed away on the cruddiest looking post-apocalypse I’ve ever seen. “Mutant Chronicles” falls into that quirky sub-genre known as “steampunk,” so everything is coal-fired. Steampunk more or less reached its cultural apex with the final scene in “Back to the Future III.” Since then, we’ve had “Wild Wild West” and this film. Steampunk can go eff itself.
“The Mutant Chronicles” is not a noble failure. It isn’t a movie with a reach that exceeds its grasp. Rather, it’s one of those movies where you get the sense that the people behind the camera had never actually seen a film before they started shooting. It’s a two-hour fan film, a shittily made valentine to a retarded RPG. You’d have to be a mutant to enjoy this.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
14
If My Life Were a Movie…
Filed Under Fanwank, Movies | Leave a Comment
There is absolutely nothing to blog about today. No-thing! So, I’m going to have to make something up. Over the years, I’ve heard people tell me about how some experience in their life was “like something out of a movie.” I’ve always found that odd. People honestly feel as though movies bleed into our reality whenever something unusual happens to them. Well, you’ll never hear me say that crap. This could be because my life is a crushing bore for the most part. Whatever it is, I’ve never experienced an event that seemingly occurred in slow motion or even bullet time for that matter.
But what if my life were like a movie…? Better yet, what if my life were a movie? Who would be in it? Who would direct it? Would there be adult situations, language, nudity and violence? Oh, and what would it be about? On paper, my life story doesn’t exactly lend itself to a film. One would have to take all sorts of artistic license with the source material.
So, without further ado, if my life were a movie, here’s what kind of movie it’d be:
Who’d play me? Ewan McGregor.
Who’d direct it? Robert Rodriguez.
Who’d play my love interest? Eva Green.
Who’d play the villain? An all-CGI Heath Ledger.
Who’d play my sidekick? Samuel L. Jackson.
What would it be called? “Lohan Begins.”
What genre is this? Buddy Cop Movie/Creature Feature.
What’s the logline? A cop on the edge is bitten by a radioactive fellow and becomes a superhero on the edge; and undersea denizens decide to wage war on the surface dwellers. So he has to deal with that.
What’s the synopsis? Detective Brad Lohan doesn’t do things by the book. He hasn’t even read the book. Unfortunately, everyone on the LAPD pretty much shares this philosophy. In fact, his fellow officers, including his partner Det. Samuel L. Jackson, think Lohan’s friggin’ Serpico compared to them. They’re that dirty. The criminal element in Los Angeles is actually 99.9% cops, and 0.1% people who don’t put enough change in the meter.
When some radioactive superhero breezes into town and tries to inspire people to do good, the LAPD takes that sonofabitch out but good. However, before the superhero dies horribly, he bites Lohan and passes his powers on to him. Lohan is reluctant to use his new abilities in such a way that might effect any positive change in the community. So he just shows off for intrepid Internet blogger, Eva Green, who he beds without even really trying all that hard.
The corrupt police department develops a WMD that they use to hold the city for ransom. Yes, they’re that evil; they’re practically SPECTRE from the Bond movies. (I personally don’t have anything against cops. I just think it’s funny to dial up the corrupt cop aspect to 11 for the purposes of my motion picture.) This doomsday weapon can melt the polar ice caps at such an incredible rate, mankind can no longer pretend that global climate change is just some liberal bullshit. That really angers a lot of people, including the people of an undersea kingdom, whose property values will plummet if the beachfront moves from California to Denver. Yes, having beachfront property is even important to folks who live underwater.
Anyway, Lohan’s torn between his loyalty to his fellow cops and his devotion to Eva Green. She’s of course an environmentalist, having a last name like that. The undersea dwellers start their invasion just then, which is the perfect opportunity for him to avoid making a decision either way. Instead, he gets to use his powers to fight fish-people, which is terribly exciting. And lots of major Los Angeles landmarks are wantonly and stylishly destroyed during the fracas. Lohan also befriends a talking catfish named Gin-Jor. Gin-Jor can fly and is voiced by Cate Blanchett. She’s also big enough that Lohan can ride her when he gets tired of flying all over the place.
Lohan is betrayed to the fish-people by Eva Green, who’s a double agent and gives one of those lame speeches that two-timers always give about how it’s better to rule in hell or whatever. She gives the speech in a bikini, however, so it’s much more palatable. Lohan’s powers are stripped from him and he’s condemned to death by the all-CGI Heath Ledger, ruler of the fish people. He’s actually even better in this movie than he was as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” thus guaranteeing him a second posthumous Oscar.
Samuel L. Jackson comes to the rescue and saves Lohan from being fed to barracuda. Jackson’s revealed to be a superhero as well, one that can give other people superpowers by fist-bumping them. So Lohan’s empowered once again. He and Jackson kill all of the fish-people. Eva Green helps, thereby redeeming herself. Gin-Jor spends this stretch of the film sleeping lazily, but we keep cutting back to her during the brutal fight scenes for comedic effect.
Lohan and Samuel L. Jackson return to their jobs as dirty cops. They both vow not to tell anyone about their secret identities and only use their powers for personal gain moving forward. The LAPD’s extortion plot earns the department a ton of dirty money. Lohan and Eva Green continue seeing each other. Little does he know that she’s secretly been in contact with intergalactic dinosaurs that are planning a takeover of the planet earth. And that leaves things wide open for a sequel.
The End…of the Beginning
-Brad Lohan
Apr
13
I’m probably the only person who’s holding out hope that Liam Neeson’s character from “Batman Begins,” Ra’s Al Ghul, will return for “Batman 3.” You never see his body at the end of “Batman Begins,” and Heath Ledger is heretofore unavailable to essay the role of the Joker again. But my fanwank has absolutely nothing to do with “Iron Man 3.” So the paragraph you just read is completely pointless.
Moving on, I’m noticing this bizarro trend in the bits and bobs of celebrity interviews I read online. If I were an entertainment journo, I would hate my job. All they do is talk to cagey celebs at these junkets about movies they’ve made that they can’t talk about in any detail and/or movies they’re going to make that they don’t know anything about.
And that brings me to an article I read on Chud. Faran Tahir, who played the bald terrorist leader in “Iron Man,” is doing press for “Star Trek.” Naturally, entertainment journos could give two shits about “Star Trek,” not when they can try to get a worthless scoop on a vapor-film. So Tahir hinted at the possibility of his character returning in “Iron Man 3.” Never mind that Obadiah Stane had him killed in “Iron Man 1.” Actually, we never see his body either, so he could be hiding out with Ra’s Al Ghul, biding his time until the threequel is announced.
Wow, I managed to bring that around quite nicely.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
4
I always find it a little presumptuous when people start talking about a movie’s sequel potential before the movie even comes out. But since so many movies are more or less pilot episodes for budding franchises, it’s hard to get excited about movie one when the sequel is actually going to be much more interesting.
Such is not the case with “Watchmen.” The graphic novel is self-contained. Creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons never did a follow-up. The book is sort of open-ended, but what would happen in a prequel or a sequel? Moore and Gibbons pretty much exhausted all the story potential the “Watchmen” universe has to offer.
Nonetheless, director Zack Snyder’s going to be fielding questions about “Watchmen 2″ for the rest of his professional career. According to IMDb, he’s not on board for a sequel. The film’s stars are all contractually obligated to appear in any follow-ups, but that’s SOP for movie studios when signing talent.
Fanboys will be quick to point out that a Minutemen prequel could be made. And who wouldn’t like to see more of Carla Gugino in her banana yellow Vargas Girl outfit? But still, is a Minutemen movie something that needs to happen? Can a creative work just stand on its own without having to be sequelized? Adaptations are one thing. Sequels and prequels are sometimes more trouble than they’re worth. Sucky ones have a tendency to undermine the previous installments.
I hope “Watchmen” does well at the box office, but not because I get whipped up into a frenzy about opening weekend numbers. No, the success of “Watchmen” will mean studios will take more chances on risky material — books like “Squadron Supreme,” for example. Anybody who wants a prequel/sequel to “Watchmen” would dig the hell out of that title.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
18
Setting Everything Up
Filed Under Culture, Fanwank, Movies | 5 Comments
I’m pretty burned out on origin movies, movies that exist solely to establish the characters, the conflict and the story world, before sending viewers on their merry way with the knowledge that the inevitable sequel will be much more action-oriented. Origin movies are lazy filmmaking. They’re two hours of exposition designed to “set everything up,” as though audiences are too stupid to understand the mechanics of good vs. evil.
I think part of my waning interest in origin movies comes from the fact that I’m already very familiar with many of the properties that are being adapted for the big screen these days. But, that’s not the only reason. Movies should be self-contained, not overlong prologues. They should obviously establish the conflict, but it should be done economically. By the end of the first act, not the first film, the audience should be ready for the story to shift into high gear.
I blame the “Star Wars” prequels for this crap. George Lucas made three goddamn movies about a sentence or two of exposition that Obi-Wan Kenobi rattles off in Episode IV. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s expository dialogue was to establish that Darth Vader was a bad dude. Audiences didn’t really need much more insight beyond that, but instead, we got a trilogy of joyless fanwank that told us more than we’d ever need (or care) to know about Vader.
And worse, prequel-mania has captured the imaginations of filmmakers the world over. Now the prequel is built in to the first film of a trilogy. Never mind that the original 1977 “Star Wars” film begins in media res with the exposition done in a text crawl before viewers are launched into the middle of the action. Now if we don’t see a hero’s birth, his terrible twos, his first day of kindergarten, his awkward teenage years, his high school graduation, and his first hooker who OD’d on him, well, clearly we’ll be ill-equipped as audience members to understand anything about him when he’s bitten by a radioactive platypus and recruited by the general of an undersea kingdom to fight the hordes of shark-zombies that threaten the planet Earth.
Now if anyone else in this town has a script with that same central concept, I’ll eat my shoe.
At any rate, I prefer movies that get right to it. Look at “The Matrix” or “Pirates of the Caribbean.” They’re both films that “set everything up,” but don’t waste any time, either. They have open-endings, yes, but they weren’t made with sequels in mind. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who prefers the sequels over the originals. Why? Well, the first installments are satisfying in and of themselves. The sequels try too hard to pile on all sorts of additional nonsense, though I do have to admit I like the second and third “Pirates” movies partly because they’re so overstuffed.
But look at a movie like “X-Men.” It’s a 100-minute first act. “X2″ is a vastly superior X-Men film because it doesn’t fart around endlessly, overexplaining a world in which some people are born with unique abilities. Audiences don’t need a dissertation. We’re pretty saavy. We can learn as we go. I can’t believe viewers would feel so terribly alienated by a film that skips over the hero’s early days, as long as they weren’t absolutely essential to the story. And here’s a fun fact: they’re not.
Backstory is best when it’s this anamorphous thing. I don’t need to see Martin Riggs as a sniper in Vietnam to know that he’s a crack shot in “Lethal Weapon.” I don’t need to see John McClane having an argument with his wife in July to understand that the two of them are still pretty angry with each other at Christmas in “Die Hard.” Filmmakers have taken the concept of “show, don’t tell” way too far. It’s like that asinine show “Family Guy,” where someone makes a reference to something that happened in the past (and involved Gary Coleman or Knight Rider for no reason whatsoever), and then the show flashes back to said event. Who gives a dump?
Exposition should taper off drastically at the 30-minute mark. Otherwise, you’re setting up a world I’m rapidly losing interest in.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
13
Minutemen Video Game
Filed Under Fanwank, Movies, Video Games | Leave a Comment
Having grown up on side-scrolling beat ‘em up video games, I got a kick out of the “Minutemen” arcade game that’s now online. It’s a fun little bit of viral marketing for “Watchmen,” which is now less than a month away from release. For those of you who haven’t read the graphic novel, the Minutemen were a team of WWII-era crimefighters.
In the game, you can play as either the original Silk Spectre or the original Nite-Owl and repeatedly deliver kicks to the man-parts of hoodlums before coming face-to-face with Moloch, who throws syringes or something at you. He’s laughably easy to beat for an end of level boss. Still, the blocky, archaic brilliance of the game makes me nostalgic for the old arcade cabinets you used to see in pizza parlors and convenience stores.
I only wish the game would’ve had unlockable characters like the ill-fated Crimebusters, particularly Rorschach or the Comedian.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
12
Superman Reloaded
Filed Under Comics, Fanwank, Movies | Leave a Comment
Warner Bros. has had a devil of a time trying to relaunch the “Superman” franchise. They spent the bulk of the ’90s, throwing good money after bad (i.e. having producer Jon Peters attached to the project), trying to get another “toyetic” superhero movie in multiplexes. The Batman films were experiencing diminishing returns, and a certain boy wizard hadn’t become a phenomenon for them yet.
The studio did get quite an unexpected influx of cash when they released a little film called “The Matrix” in 1999. They immediately put two sequels into development and ultimately unleashed a disappointing double-whammy in 2003 with “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions.” But the films made Warner Bros. a pile of money nonetheless. Five years later the Wachowski Brothers, the writing-directing team behind the “Matrix” trilogy, experienced their first major box office failure with the shitty looking “Speed Racer” live-action adaptation; I’ve read that it’s actually good, but I simply refuse to believe such nonsense.
Hollywood’s nothing if not forgiving. As such, the latest word on AICN is that the studio’s offered the Wachowskis the reigns to the proposed Superman reboot, one that discards the events of “Superman Returns.”
Now I’ve war-gamed potential storylines that could follow “Superman Returns,” removing the less desireable elements (his illegitimate son in particular), and not completely retconning the film. I think you’re asking too much of an audience to completely ignore a movie even if it wasn’t wholly satisfying.
If I were at the helm, Clark Kent would be laid off from the Daily Planet and land a job as a news anchor at GBS, a Metropolis-based TV station. This would eliminate Lois Lane from the equation, a character Kate Bosworth has no business playing, and make room for Cat Grant, an obscenely hot blonde anchorwoman. My approach sort of parallels what actually happens in the Superman comics, so there! It’d be interesting to see him as a Keith Olbermann-type talking head and modernize the film series at the same time; nobody reads newspapers anymore. Oh, and Brainiac would come to Earth and wreaks all sorts of havoc. It would indeed be a job for Superman. But that’s all fanwank.
I’m not sure if the Wachowskis will write their own script or use the pitch that comic book creator Mark Millar was talking up a few months ago. I find it a little irritating that the studio is talking about a trilogy when the goofballs haven’t been able to make one great Superman film in almost 30 years. And this is coming from a guy who likes “Superman III.” That said, I dunno if the Wachowskis are a great fit for the Superman franchise. I can, however, vouch for myself.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
12
Should the Joker Retire?
Filed Under Blockbusters, Culture, Fanwank, Movies | Leave a Comment
I think if the Joker retires from feature films, he should also begin a hip-hop career. Now there’s an album I’d buy. Anyway, some Joker fans have created a web site called TheUltimateJoker.com where there’s an online petition you can sign that demands Warner Bros. retire the Joker character from any future Bat-films. The yahoos who created the site apparently think that Heath Ledger’s performance was so good, no actor should ever be allowed to play the role again…forever and ever.
I imagine Borat would describe these fans as having a “very funny retardation.” I know I would. I think Ledger’s performance as the Joker is great, but I also dig Jack Nicholson in the role. What’s interesting about the two performances is how different they are. Both actors bring their own bag of tricks to the character, which is kind of what good actors do. It’s pretty short-sighted to imagine that another actor years from now won’t have a completely fresh approach to the character when the franchise is restarted for the umpteenth time.
That said, I don’t think I’d like to see the Joker return in “Batman 3,” and I’m pretty sure Chris Nolan wouldn’t recast the role for all the tea in China. Besides, he should bring back Liam Neeson’s character from “Batman Begins;” we never saw Ra’s Al Ghul’s body, and what’s more, the character’s an immortal in the comics. But I digress.
At any rate, online petitions are just short of screaming in the wind. I seriously doubt Warner Bros. will retire the character from the silver screen for good. It doesn’t seem like the right way to honor Ledger’s performance for one thing. To that end, a $500 million domestic gross for “The Dark Knight” and an Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination are a much better tribute to the actor’s turn as the Joker.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
12
“DC vs. Marvel”
Filed Under Comics, Fanwank | Leave a Comment
Let’s go back in time 13 years. I was still in high school — yeesh, I’m getting old! — and a voracious fan of comics. The ’90s were literally and figuratively a dark period of the medium, which had been limping along since, well, forever. Marvel filed for Chapter 11 by the middle of the decade, their sales plummeting after events like “The Clone Saga” slapped longtime readers in the face. Meanwhile, DC was just as creatively bankrupt, having killed off Superman, paralyzed Batman and turned Green Lantern into a homicidal maniac. That I managed to keep reading despite both publishers’ cynical attempts at boosting revenues with gimmicks rather than good stories is a testament to my overall kookiness.
In sorting through my comic book collection last weekend, I stumbled upon a four-issue mini-series, a crossover that pits both publishers’ A-listers (and a few B-listers) against one another in what promised to be the battle royale of the decade: “DC vs. Marvel!” Granted, the two publishers had crossed over in the past, but this was a intercompany crossover — ’90s style!
Well, I reread the miniseries, and boy, one couldn’t ask for a better checklist of what was absolutely wrong with the medium back in the day. Here are some highlights:
Spider-Man isn’t Peter Parker, but a clone of Peter Parker who goes by the name Ben Reilly. For whatever reason, Marvel originally intended on writing Peter Parker out of the Spider-Man books and shifting the focus to this Ben Reilly schmendrick. So there was this brief period in which Parker was convinced he was the clone and Reilly was the real deal. Fans were universally outraged. Marvel ultimately regained their senses, and Reilly was literally atomized, allowing for Peter Parker to take up the mantle once again. “The Clone Saga” is perhaps the worst storyline in Marvel’s 70-year history and even drove a diehard Spidey fan like me to quit reading the “Spider-Man” books for a spell.
Superman has a mullet. I’ve heard that when you die, your hair keeps growing. This is even true for Superman, who returned from the grave in 1994 with a ‘do that can only be described as “business in the front, party in the back.” One would think this might make it even more difficult for people not to notice that Supes and Clark Kent are actually the same guy. Somehow, a pair of glasses and bad posture make all the difference. At any rate, Superman looked absolutely stupid with longish hair, which he finally chopped when he temporarily lost his powers during “Final Night” in ‘97.
Wolverine doesn’t have an adamantium skeleton. Magneto — the master of magnetism! — finally got the bright idea to remove all the unbreakable metal from Wolverine’s skeleton, including his claws; it would’ve been an interesting approach to the character for maybe a six-issue storyarc. However, Wolvie spent most of the decade tearing into people with his retractable “bone claws” before had underwent the process of having his bones laced with adamantium all over again.
Green Lantern is Kyle Rayner. When the Green Lantern Hal Jordan went berserk after the destruction of his hometown, he killed a whole bunch of other Green Lanterns (there are tons of them) and stole their rings; a Green Lantern’s ring is where he derives his power. Anyway, the Guardians of Oa — a committee of blue space dwarfs — settled on this lame-o graphic designer as the new Green Lantern of Earth. Meh. Dude’s a putz.
Hulk is smart. Much of what I like about the Hulk is that he’s heroic in spite of himself. He’s angry and a monster and not terribly bright. A rampaging brute isn’t often a good guy, and that’s what’s great about him. Giving him Bruce Banner’s IQ, which I believe makes him the smartest character in the Marvel Universe (yes, even smarter than Mr. Fantastic), completely kiboshes Hulk’s unique brand of rage-fueled heroism. Now, I know I campaigned for the “Smart Hulk” to be the villain in the “Avengers” film, but that’s really only how a brainy version of the character can work. Marvel heroes are paradoxical.
Superboy exists. When Superman died (for about six months), four Supermen took up his mantle. One of them was a teenage clone called Superboy; an earlier incarnation of Superboy — now apocryphal in the DC Universe — was in fact a young Clark Kent. I confess that I did actually like the character of Superboy when I was a teen, but now I think he’s a douchebag. I couldn’t have been happier when DC killed him off a couple years ago during “Infinite Crisis.”
The storyline for “DC vs. Marvel” has something to do with these two god-like “brothers,” who lord over their own respective universes — one being DC, the other Marvel. Apparently perpetual adolescents, the brothers are concerned with whose universe is better, and the only way that can be determined is by having the DC and Marvel heroes fight each other in a series of surprisingly brief bouts. It’s like reading a comic book adaptation of the video game “Mortal Kombat” with all the fatalities cut out. Oh, and one universe will be destroyed if its heroes lose too many of these punch-ups.
I tend to roll my eyes when it comes to universe-leveling storylines. “DC vs. Marvel” is no exception. When the stakes are so monumentally enormous, it’s unfathomable to the point of meaninglessness. What strikes me as odd about the characters from both universes is that they don’t stop and think for a minute, not even Smart Hulk(!), about the situation. What happens if they don’t fight at all? Neither brother wants his universe to be destroyed, so why don’t the heroes tell them to sit and spin? What’re they going to do, destroy each other? Call their bluff.
The best thing that came out of this crossover is the Amalgam Universe, a batch of one-shot issues that hybridized a number of DC and Marvel characters: Dark Claw (Batman & Wolverine), Spider-Boy (Spider-Man & Superboy), Super Soldier (Superman & Captain America) and so on and so forth. It probably would’ve been more interesting of they didn’t blend characters who were more alike than different. Image a Wolverine/Superman amalgamation — Super-X, the Man of Adamantium!
“DC vs. Marvel,” like any crossover, is simply fanwank. It’s been done better before. Here, it’s the worst of both worlds.
-Brad Lohan