The End of the Marvel Movie Summary
I last summarized my opinions of the Marvel Movies back in early 2020. From there through the end of 2021, six different Marvel movies came out, 4 in the MCU and 2 otherwise. As we have seen, I have seen none of them. The closest I've gotten to a Marvel movie since then is a rewatching of The Avengers.
Of course, now I've got access to a ton of Marvel television, and I've watched three seasons of DareDevil and one season apiece of Jessica Jones, Punisher and Hit-Monkey, plus The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. That seems like a lot, but still leaves me far "behind." Even if we just count the MCU shows that have come out since Disney+ launched, that's still at least WandaVision, Loki and Hawkeye.
The point, I think is that we've definitely blown past the point where I'm physically going to be able to keep up even with the MCU movies, let alone with the MCU television shows. Perhaps more importantly, over the last twenty years we've gone from "holy crap, they are making comic book movies" to "they're making GOOD comic book movies" to "oh god, they've made 17 more comic book movies." While I haven't lost complete interest, in a world where I'm going to have limited opportunities to see movies at least until my daughter is old enough to go with me, I'm going to have to pick my spots. And if my choice is between another Marvel movie (or really most franchise movies) and something that might actually be new and interesting or old and classic, most of the time new/interesting or old/classic is going to win. I don't want to imply that I'll never see one again, because I'm sure that with sufficiently good reviews from friends or a particularly beloved character a few will pop to the top of the list, but I'm not the teenage demographic desired by the studios for most tentpole movies, haven't been for years, and finally feel like it.
It's truly staggering how much comic books have taken over pop culture at this point. They went from being more or less a joke for kids to the dominant format across movies and television. More or less every really famous comic has had some kind of movie or television adaptation already, or will in the near future. Of my own personal favorites, the only one that hasn't attracted any adaptation attention is Transmetropolitan, but pretty much everything else even vaguely mainstream in my collection has been covered or will be soon. I'm not sure that even westerns in the 1950s had this kind of cultural dominance, and there was a lot less culture to dominate back then.
One day, of course, comic books will go out of fashion as source material will go out of fashion and something will replace them. They will be relegated to occasional titles for a specialty market, like the westerns of my father's first twenty years are today. But that day seems to be a long ways away, and if the MCU in particular keeps the median high enough, it might not come in my daughter's first 20 years.
With that, let's give a shout out to Blade, which really kicked off the modern comic book movie phase way back in 1998, and still holds up better than most of the many, many comic book movies I've seen in my life. As Ebert predicted when he reviewed it:
At a time when too many movies are built from flat, TV-style visuals of people standing around talking, movies based on comic books represent one of the last best hopes for visionary filmmaking.
Well, that came true. All things visionary become routine though, and that's where we've arrived today.
Of course, now I've got access to a ton of Marvel television, and I've watched three seasons of DareDevil and one season apiece of Jessica Jones, Punisher and Hit-Monkey, plus The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. That seems like a lot, but still leaves me far "behind." Even if we just count the MCU shows that have come out since Disney+ launched, that's still at least WandaVision, Loki and Hawkeye.
The point, I think is that we've definitely blown past the point where I'm physically going to be able to keep up even with the MCU movies, let alone with the MCU television shows. Perhaps more importantly, over the last twenty years we've gone from "holy crap, they are making comic book movies" to "they're making GOOD comic book movies" to "oh god, they've made 17 more comic book movies." While I haven't lost complete interest, in a world where I'm going to have limited opportunities to see movies at least until my daughter is old enough to go with me, I'm going to have to pick my spots. And if my choice is between another Marvel movie (or really most franchise movies) and something that might actually be new and interesting or old and classic, most of the time new/interesting or old/classic is going to win. I don't want to imply that I'll never see one again, because I'm sure that with sufficiently good reviews from friends or a particularly beloved character a few will pop to the top of the list, but I'm not the teenage demographic desired by the studios for most tentpole movies, haven't been for years, and finally feel like it.
It's truly staggering how much comic books have taken over pop culture at this point. They went from being more or less a joke for kids to the dominant format across movies and television. More or less every really famous comic has had some kind of movie or television adaptation already, or will in the near future. Of my own personal favorites, the only one that hasn't attracted any adaptation attention is Transmetropolitan, but pretty much everything else even vaguely mainstream in my collection has been covered or will be soon. I'm not sure that even westerns in the 1950s had this kind of cultural dominance, and there was a lot less culture to dominate back then.
One day, of course, comic books will go out of fashion as source material will go out of fashion and something will replace them. They will be relegated to occasional titles for a specialty market, like the westerns of my father's first twenty years are today. But that day seems to be a long ways away, and if the MCU in particular keeps the median high enough, it might not come in my daughter's first 20 years.
With that, let's give a shout out to Blade, which really kicked off the modern comic book movie phase way back in 1998, and still holds up better than most of the many, many comic book movies I've seen in my life. As Ebert predicted when he reviewed it:
At a time when too many movies are built from flat, TV-style visuals of people standing around talking, movies based on comic books represent one of the last best hopes for visionary filmmaking.
Well, that came true. All things visionary become routine though, and that's where we've arrived today.