Comic Book Movies VS Other Media

I just don't understand what the fuss is all about with these comic book movies, especially the MCU.

Are the characters likeable? Yes.

Is the action cool? Yes.

But for someone like me who enjoyed superhero flicks of the past, I desired more.

I got more with hero flicks of the past. And I get more with the shows, cartoons and video games that I drench myself with on a regular basis.

Haman's face there mirrors my mood with the modern culture that slobbers over these movies as if they're the Second Coming of Christ.

The one media sensation that I can’t put my finger on right now is the sudden popularity of comic book movies. Back then, it was just a bunch of nerds like me who cared about them, now, it’s practically the new Star Wars, with a former friend of mine whom I had a falling out with calling Guardians of the Galaxy a better Star Wars than the actual one. Whether it be Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, or the Avengers as a whole, comic book movies have hit it as big as other blockbusters and cultural icons like Game of Thrones and Star Wars. While this phenomenon is somewhat restricted to Marvel, with DC trying to catch up, it seems that the phenomenon has spawned a new generation of fans that are catered to with all sorts of toys and gadgets bearing superhero imagery all over the place.

The movies they adore are quite different from the ones I grew up with. From the Tim Burton Batman movies to the Dark Knight Trilogy and original Spider-Man Trilogy and the Watchmen movie, the superhero films I liked had a distinct sense of morality and tone that was different from the ones being adored right now. While the movies back then focused on a lesson or an aesop, these new ones seemed to focus more on action and personalities, marketing likeable heroes doing cool things, and stringing them together to create a universe consisting of multi-million dollar blockbuster films.

And the one thing I don’t get is, why are they so popular? What’s so different about them? Cool people doing cool things has been a staple of movies long before this era, and superhero movies of better caliber than the ones being churned out now got less attention in the past. Why on earth are they making so much money?

WHY I’M NOT A FAN

My complaints with the modern set of action films comes from the fact that I don’t see the appeal in them. Granted, they can be cool, exciting, funny, but I used to have more meat in the sandwich when it came to superhero movies. The Tim Burton Batman was exciting and fun, but it also had a strong sense of character development. The Spider-Man Trilogy people love to mock nowadays was also exciting and fun, but had a strong emphasis on morality and loyalty. The Watchmen movie that released to a tepid welcome had all sorts of deep themes and meanings, and yet it gets the backburner to an Avengers movie where they just fight a generic robot army playing the Skynet role? I’ve seen better movies, I’ve seen better SUPERHERO movies, and frankly, I think they were better. Granted, I did like some, like Man of Steel, the Wonder Woman movie, and some were decent, such as the first two Iron Man movies, the first Captain America movie, the first Avengers flick, and so on. But as they kept going through, I just saw the newer iterations as dragging out plot points while having video game-esque combat with little consequence.

As much as I criticize the new Disney Star Wars, I’d be dishonest if I didn’t point out that those movies had an edge over the Marvel films-they have more consequence than the Marvel movies, and more reasons to get invested and worried about the characters. Most hero flicks now have them do something cool, fight some bad guy, then do more cool things, while the Disney Star Wars films had real consequences tied to their actions. Episode VII killed off Han Solo. Rogue One killed off the main cast of characters, which solidifies it as a film that shows that war is hell. The other George Lucas Star Wars films did the same-the Original Trilogy killed off a whole planet’s worth of people, then Kenobi and Yoda, while the Prequels killed off Qui-Gon, then later the whole Jedi Order along with Padme Amidala. Quite the opposite theme to Guardians of the Galaxy where it’s more like a bunch of heroic fun-seekers gallivanting around space having a grand old time. Even when they get into trouble, I don’t care, because it doesn’t seem like they’re in any real danger at all.

You know what separates a realistic story from a tongue-in-cheek one? The part where the heroes get captured. In the former, they’re in real danger, because the bad guys can do all sorts of nasty things to them. Whether it’s Darth Vader torturing Han Solo and then turning him into a popsicle, or Ramsay Bolton cutting off Theon Greyjoy’s “sausage” and then later raping Sansa Stark, the captors leave real consequences for the heroes and the heroes might get permanently damaged or scarred. The audience fears for them and their safety. When the Joker in the Dark Knight captures Harvey Dent and Rachel, there was some real fear that the Joker would put them in danger, and he went ahead and killed Rachel while Dent barely survived and turned into a madman. Whereareas in the latter kind of story, the tongue-in-cheek one, the heroes get captured, and we’re just waiting for them to bust their asses out, because we all know they’ll be out soon, and it won’t really impact any of the main characters. Getting captured by the bad guys is just a temporary time out. It’s like killing Batman in DC comics-it’s practically just a vacation for him. There’s no sense of investment, of worry on the side of the good guys, it’s just a countdown to how long until the heroes get free. Kids’ cartoons that have to keep characters alive for 20 or more episodes can get away with that, but big, blockbuster movies that are sold to multiple age ranges? Come on!

ACTION AS THE PILLAR? REALLY?

If I can’t be bothered to get invested in the characters, then it just leaves the action. And the action, while good, isn’t the best I’ve seen. Previous superhero movies had cool action scenes to go along with their morals. Many of the cartoon and anime series that I watch have great action scenes as well. Many video games that I play have just as good or even better action being dished out, and it’s improved by the fact that I can participate in the action. Why would I care about Iron Man when I can play as Optimus Prime shooting Destronium rounds from his blaster that obliterate whole platoons of giant robots, or Gundam Physalis wiping out a whole regiment of Mobile Suits with a nuke? Why would I care about Thor fighting Loki when I’ve got Bayonetta fighting gods and demons? Why would I care about the Guardians of the Galaxy when I’ve got the Force Unleashed or Knights of the Old Republic, the former being a space action game with Vader’s apprentice going buck-wild with the Force, the latter being a serious space adventure that has both kickass combat and the moral dilemmas of the light and dark sides of the Force? Why would I care about Black Widow being a badass female when I made my own female Spartan in Halo Reach and Halo 4 who kills whole battalions of space-age armies? I’ve got Gundams firing nukes, Transformers chucking black hole grenades, witches ripping apart demigods with dark energy, Jedi and Sith sending whole battalions flying with a mere thought, and female supersoldiers wiping out a galactic empire’s worth of space-age armies with their own guns, so what makes people think that I’d care about the likes of the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers when I have these guys?

I just don’t see the audience for them outside of A) comic book nerds who have waited to see comic films succeed in the public eye for a long time, and B) easily-impressed lemmings. It’s not like Game of Thrones which is a fantasy setting mixed with intricate medieval politics, or Breaking Bad which talks about modern social problems while telling the story of a professor-turned-drug kingpin. These stories have been told before, and in my point of view, past superhero movies did a better job. I’m happy for Marvel that they’re doing so good, but I just don’t see much substance in these new films. I suppose people liked the fact that superhero flicks no longer teach morality but just have likeable characters doing cool things, which isn’t anything new. That’s kind of sad, in my perspective.

COMPARING TO OTHER MEDIA

When I sit down at night to watch an anime or a cartoon, I’ve come to realize that the stuff I watch has more substance than the movies people slobber over. I just recently got done watching three Gundam shows, Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Gundam Unicorn, and G Gundam. Being Gundam cartoons, they’re obviously 20-minute-long commercials made to sell Gunpla toys from Japan, but I can’t help but notice that they have more substance than the movies that get top billing today. Stardust Memory was created as a cash-in for fans of Mobile Suit Gundam, to explain what happened between the first Gundam cartoon show, Mobile Suit Gundam, and the second one, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Gundam Unicorn was created for fans of late Universal Century works like Char’s Counterattack, to end the whole shebang on a high note, while introducing robots with multiple modes(which in turn, gives them multiple toy versions of the same robot to buy). G Gundam was made with a tournament as the story backdrop so they can sell more toys per episode because a tournament style show gives them many opportunities to introduce new robots for kids to buy. They’re all literally toy commercials to move boxes filled with 3D-printed plastic robot parts.

And yet, when I analyze them, these shows have more substance to offer the average viewer than the average Marvel movie. They can match or surpass the movies in terms of action and characters, introducing cool new heroes and villains into the Gundam universe, they have many great battles and action scenes that can give the Marvel movies a run for their money, and their plots can get complex with storytelling that can range from subtle to hammy as all hell(especially with G Gundam-they make the Marvel movies look subtle by comparison). But in terms of stories and characters, these anime practically leave the movies in the dust. You think that government conspiracy in Captain America’s movies were complex? Try the conspiracies with Gundam Stardust Memory and Gundam Unicorn. You think Loki is a pretty cool villain? Try Master Asia from G Gundam. He’ll not only outdo Loki in the villain department, but he’ll snap Loki like a twig, too. And if you think Loki’s misguided attempts to earn Odin’s favor was a good villain story, Master Asia’s misguided attempt at saving the planet by wiping out all humanity for polluting the damn mudball was more of a tragedy when he dies in the arm of his pupil realizing that he was wrong as all hell and he has a tearful reconciliation with his student before he dies in the middle of a beautiful sunset.

WORLD-BUILDING? WHAT WORLD-BUILDING?

Another pet peeve of mine with these movies is that the worldbuilding is rather bare-bones. Even the corniest anime or Western cartoon I watched had a sense of world-building that at least fills the blanks as to what kind of world these people live in. The world feels realistic, lived-in, and therefore, the characters are easier to relate to when they live in realized worlds instead of creating worlds revolving around heroes that can change arbitrarily.

These villains keep showing up in these movies, and yet the humans do precious little outside of SHIELD and Stark Industries to prepare for the next invasion by freaks. They don’t improve the military, they don’t create shelters for people to hide out in, and when Tony Stark tried to create automated defenses, all that came from it was a generic robot army that they fought. Compared to other forms of media, this world that they’re trying to build with the Marvel Cinematic Universe has little in the way of actually building the universe to be a real place instead of being just a backdrop for the heroes. Even shows like One Punch Man which was an anime made as a parody of superhero cliches have better world-building than the actual superhero comics and films that One Punch Man was trying to make a parody of.

For example, take the Michael Bay Transformers films and the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Say what you will about Bay, at the very least, his movies have some sense of worldbuilding, as weak as it is when compared to better stories. When the humans first run across the Transformers, they’re flat-footed and helpless, and it was only through the help of the Autobots did the human forces defeat the Decepticons. Come the next two movies, and we see the humans adapting Transformers tech like energon scanners and human soldiers practicing with Autobots on how to take down enemy Cybertronians. The fourth movie takes it further by having the humans turn on the Autobots and show how much they learned, by using energon scanners to track fugitive Autobots and human corporations being shown to be able to build Transformers of their own-improved and better compared to the original articles. The humans turn on the Autobots because it was an Autobot who allowed the Decepticons to invade in the third movie, and so, not wanting to deal with more rogue bots, the human intelligence agencies went behind the backs of the military and decided to off the Autobots permanently while making docile versions of them to serve as soldiers. Granted, it doesn’t work, mostly because Galvatron sabotaged the whole process and turned the humans’ pet Transformers into his new army, but still, points for trying, and points for Bay for showing some progression in his movies and some cause-and-effect. Say what you will about the man, but at least he has a fully-realized world for the characters to walk around in. Now if he could only focus on the Transformers more………

And the 2003 TMNT cartoon does the same thing. Actions have consequences. The Turtles do something heroic or take out a bad guy, and it has consequences for later episodes. Michaelangelo makes friends with a superhero club, they later vouch for the Turtles when the Turtles call for a summit against the threat of the Tengu Shredder and the government thugs and gangsters wanted to kill the Turtles instead. When the Turtles first take out the Utrom Shredder, a free-for-all gang war between the crime bosses, the street gangs, and the remnants of the Foot Clan breaks out because the Utrom Shredder kept all these gangs in line through fear. The Tengu Shredder himself came back from the dead because the turtles did a job for the government and stole a magic amulet from the female Shredder who succeeded the Utrom Shredder, and it allowed a bunch of mystics to escape her control when the amulet was destroyed, and these mystics then revived the Tengu Shredder. When aliens attacked the Earth looking for a certain robot, humans in later episodes became fearful of non-humans like the Turtles, and several factions like the Purple Dragons start wielding alien blasters that were scavenged when two alien factions slaughtered one another over Earth’s airspace. Alien technology became a prize sought by several factions, such as the the Foot Clan and the Purple Dragons. Whenever some random gang on the streets start wielding blasters, it was a sign that they had connections with more powerful factions, which usually led to factions like the Purple Dragons.

These actions having consequences show a realized world that is far different from the Marvel movies that could be viewed in any order with little confusion, because outside of the films where they all come together, most of these films are insular stories of a single hero with little interference from the others. And the society at large responds to these outbreaks of superheroes and supervillains with little change, as if it was like our own. As if a robot apocalypse or a threat coming from a Norse god wouldn’t change society fundamentally. In September 11, 2001, a bunch of suicidal terrorists drove planes through a pair of skyscrapers, and that changed the United States both politically and socially. The Muslims, which were once ignored, were not a topic of contention for many Americans. America allowed for breaches in established law and protocol to get results in hunting down terrorists. Torture was permitted to gain an advantage. The nation militarized and went to war. TWICE. Troops stayed and died in foreign soil for years. All because of a couple thousand deaths from terrorists that aren’t even as powerful as gods or a massive robot army hacking our machinery. Do you really think society would stay the same after Loki or Ultron’s threats against them? The TMNT and the Transformers examples were very prevalent because the changes from one event or movie to another profoundly changed the setting that the characters lived in. In the Bayformers films, the people went from not knowing about the Transformers, to working with Optimus Prime, to hunting the Autobots when one of their chief leaders betrays humanity. The TMNT 2003 cartoon went from a rivalry between the Turtles and the Foot Clan, to having all sorts of factions and aliens getting involved as well as gangs like the Purple Dragons growing from a small street gang to living in skyscrapers and having high-powered connections and alien weaponry.

This is why I had more of an affinity for science fiction and fantasy stories rather than superhero stories. They actually had a lived-in world which felt realistic while still having fantastical elements within them. Worlds like those of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Zelda, Halo, Metroid, Gundam, Starcraft, Mass Effect, TMNT, Transformers, Star Fox, and Star Wars all feel like they evolve with the events. The events that happen in these series aren’t insular; they affect future stories as well. Unlike the comic movies which seem insular, or the comic books that they are based on that have constant resets to protect the status quo, these universes feel like they have a history that can be read like our own history, one that has the world evolve, advance, or fall into chaos thanks to the events and the people who cause them. It feels like a real world, without having the limits of our own real world, which makes these stories easier to get into and get involved with, at least for me. I get invested because I want to see more. I want to see what happens next. And I get invested because what happened in the past counts for the future.

In the first three Halo games as well as the other Bungie side-story Halo games like Halo ODST, Halo Wars, and Halo Reach, you take down the Covenant Empire. In the new Halo materials, the Covenant are now splintered into warring factions, and the Covenant forces that you face in Halos 4 and 5 are a lot more like a militia force cobbled together rather than the organized empire crushing you with its weight in previous games. In the Star Fox games, you fight Andross, and as a consequence of you beating his ass in Star Fox 1, 2, and 64, he hides to recuperate, and you finally kill him in Star Fox Adventures. The next few Star Fox games that take place after that, Star Fox Assault and Star Fox Command, are dealing with an Andross-less Lylat System, with Andross’ forces making a small cameo in Assault before they’re swept aside by the new threat of the Aparoids, and later, the Anglar in Command. Metroid Prime 1 has Samus discovering that space pirates are playing with Phazon as a potential weapon, and Metroid Primes 2 and 3 is her spending her time neutralizing Phazon-based threats like Dark Samus, a dark mirror of her that emerged in 1 and became a major threat in 2 and 3.

In the first Starcraft, over the course of the first game, the humans replace the governing Confederacy of Tarsonis with an Empire, the Zerg and the Protoss wage war with each other and the Zerg invade the Protoss homeworld but then lose their leader, the Overmind. The next game, Brood War, has a power struggle between the new Overmind and the first Overmind’s adopted human “daughter” Kerrigan, while the Protoss deal with the loss of their homeland and the humans encounter more political shits with people from Earth invading the sector and involving themselves in the Zerg power struggle. In the first Gundam cartoon, a space-borne independence movement called the Zeon wage a war for independence against the Earth Federation that leads to the loss of half of mankind, followed up with Gundam Stardust where the Zeon remnants who lost the war nuked the Federation fleet and dropped a colony onto the planet, destroying 2/3rds of the Federation fleet and a fertile region of Earth. This then leads of the Titans forces of the Earth Federation oppressing space colonists in the second Gundam show, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. The Titans oppress any space colony that they think are working against the Federation, and when they do battle with the Anti-Earth Union Group, the two factions bloody each other to the point where a new faction, Axis Zeon, takes advantage of the infighting and seizes power in space and in Earth once the Titans and the AEUG batter themselves to the breaking point, setting the stage for the third show, Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ.

All these examples showed a progression, as well as a strong insistence that past events affected the future. These examples show a consistent progression from one chain of events to another, and how they affected the world around them. Andross was a threat-until he died. The Covenant that was once a mighty Empire became a scattered hodge-podge of militias with their own agendas. The Earth Federation and the Zeon battle for control and gain/lose power based on the events. Starcraft has the Protoss, Zerg, and the humans change hands and power structures based on the battles that were fought. Metroid Primes 2 and 3 had Samus facing an enemy that first appeared in 1.

Which was why I hated the Disney canon reset for Star Wars, because like the previous examples, the Expanded Universe felt lived-in, felt logical in its progression. The Empire goes from a galaxy-spanning power to a has-been. With the Empire and Republic weakened, other factions like the Yuuzhan Vong see the chance to come into power. The Sith Empire respond to an attempted genocide of their people by the Republic with a massive, brutal war against the people of the Republic 1300 years later. People were invested in these stories and that canon for decades. You can’t just wipe it all away and declare it all moot and not expect the fans to hate your guts with the fiery intensity of a thousand Foreman grills. The fans for Disney Star Wars now seem to be the same kind who slobber over the modern slew of Marvel films, and they seem to be seeking cheap thrills more than stories with substance. And eventually, they’ll leave for greener pastures once those fads pass away, and hoo boy, are they gonna pass away soon. Enthusiasm for the next slew of Star Wars movies is dropping, Rebels is being canceled, and the Marvel hero flicks, according to experienced movie gurus like Steven Spielberg, “will go the way of the western” if they keep trying to flood the market with them.

CHARACTERS, OR LACK THEREOF

Part of what makes a good story are characters. And the characters in these new Marvel movies are, while serviceable, not as complex or appealing to me as previous characters from other series were.

Let’s take into perspective the three biggest heroes in the MCU: Iron Man, Captain America, and Starlord.

And what are their characters again? One is a smart drunk who alternates between responsible industrialist and hero and a playboy hedonist drunk. The other is a faithful soldier who tries to do everything right. The third is Han Solo with a lot less rogue and a lot more hipster.

Yeah, I’m bored already. I can predict what they’re going to do 90% of the time. There’s the time when one gets in trouble because of his hedonism. There’s the time where the goodie-two-shoe runs into an insurmountable problem that keeps him on his toes for a while, or when he runs into an enemy he doesn’t want to kill because he has some history with them. There’s this bit where the guy has fun. I’ve seen this shit all before. Why would I care about it now? Granted, the actors do a fine job portraying them, but I’m not shitting on the actors. I’m shitting on the writing, which is getting stale fast.

Anakin Skywalker, the much-maligned main character of Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3, was far more complex and to my taste, a far more interesting character. The man was literally a battleground between the Jedi and the Sith, the Light and the Dark. There’s parts where the inner beast in him comes out, and there’s parts where he tries to genuinely live up to the Jedi Code, but fails. There’s parts where he feels genuinely betrayed, and parts where he tries to stay loyal to the Jedi even though they tried to make him do something he just can’t agree with. There’s parts when he tries to do the right thing, and times when he’s doing something wrong but he KNOWS it’s wrong. What’s going on in his head? How did he calculate that this was worth more than that? It keeps me guessing. It kept me interested in him. It made me feel sorry for him when he lost his limbs and his body got burned off. How much of him was the awkward guy trying to do what was right? How much of him was the beast that was waiting to get out?

Similarly, Haman Karn, the leader of the Zeon forces in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, was far more interesting than say, Loki, whose schtick of a son wanting to do right by his father in the wrong way was something I wasn’t new to. Even when he embraced the cool side of evil, it didn’t impress me as much as Haman Karn did. Karn did for me what Loki couldn’t: play a charismatic and alluring villain who at the same time, had a sympathetic side to her and who might have turned out differently had things been different. Haman had a lot of complex issues going for her, such as her former relationship with one of the heroes in Zeta, Char Aznable, her quest for power which necessitated using the last of the Zabi royal bloodline, a young girl named Mineva, and her bitterness and all-around dark attitude that may or may not have been caused by either Char breaking up with her or her being forced to become a dictator at the tender age of sixteen.

Again, just like Anakin, there’s many facets of her character. Is she evil because she’s just a greedy prick who wants more power? Is she evil because she feels betrayed by Char and felt like she has the world on her shoulders when she became the leader of Axis Zeon as a teen? How much of her is just pure evil, and how much of her is just a soul yearning for the freedom to act on her own, a freedom she was denied when she was young? When she tries to romance the hero of Gundam ZZ, Judau Ashta, is it because she was just hot for sex and wanted an attractive and powerful mate at her side to help her conquer the world, or did Ashta’s honesty and integrity ignite some spark of light in the heart of the usually-jaded Haman? Does she truly want what’s best for Mineva, or is she just using the little tyke as a banner to get more people to her side? Could she have been a different person had Char stayed with her or had she never fallen in love with him? The fact that I can ask so many questions about her shows how complex she is and how the character can be so appealing yet complex. She didn’t need to be the kind of character thought up by a professor of Shakespearean literature. She was just some villain from a cartoon that, like other Gundam cartoons, was a toy commercial made to sell more Gundam merchandise. And yet she was far more enjoyable and complex than the villains in the recent blockbuster hero flick that people slobber over.

Let’s take another “hero” and compare him to another character I liked: Deadpool. And to compare with him, let me present Bayonetta, the preacher’s daughter who became a witch in the game series named after her.

Both characters are ridiculously powerful. Deadpool has a healing factor that would make a stab at the gut feel like a mosquito bite. Bayonetta fights members of a suicidal angelic cult by controlling demons and using their powers to flatten them. Both are snarky, with Deadpool mouthing off joke after joke after joke, while Bayonetta plays with her food by torturing her enemies with ridiculous and over-the-top ways of execution. Both are easy-going and fun people to be around with. Both are flirty and raunchy, with Bayonetta flaunting her body while Deadpool easily falls in love with a whore who plows him.

But their character arcs are where they differ. Deadpool goes emo over his ugly mug and the most distressed he gets is when the guy who gave him the healing factor kidnapped his prostitute girlfriend. Bayonetta on the other hand, had to save a friend from enemy mind-control, had to look over a child version of herself as if she was a mother, had to save her friend again, this time from hell, and had a dramatic moment with her father when she realized that her father wasn’t the great evil she thought he was, but rather, he sacrificed himself to take out an evil for the greater good. By the time he’s gone, she feels like she lost something inside, whereareas Deadpool’s story ends with him beating the bad guy and getting his girl back and having little consequence, with her not even caring about his ugly mug. For a guy who’s supposed to be an anti-hero, his story ended in a rather textbook example of hero stories ending well for the protagonist.

FINAL THOUGHTS

To wrap this whole thing up, I just don’t get the appeal that modern comic book flicks have. They’re not as complex as the hero flicks I grew up with. They’re not as captivating as the heroes I get from TV, cartoons, and video games. Their whole schtick of “likeable guy does cool stuff” entertains only for a brief while until I realize I have better methods of entertainment. I’m not saying that these films are bad, in fact, they can be really fun, but it’s just that it’s nothing new for me, and to me, they bring nothing new to the table despite being hailed as the new Mona Lisas of the geek culture. There’s no substance, there’s little in the way of morals or memorability, and in the end, I see better almost everyday when I binge-watch cartoons or play video games.

I just can’t understand what all the fuss is about.