“Heroes, Villains, and Me” is a periodic article on Geeky KOOL by Larry Litle about the world of comic books and my reaction to it. “Heroes, Villains, and Me” is not a comic book review article. I will write about current events, speculation and rumors, or my own wacky thoughts about the world of comic books and related stuff.
2017 was a good year for comic books and comic related media. The overall quality of comics is amazing. The art and writing are moved to a new level over the last 5 years. Comic related movies and television is also in a golden age. Things are good overall in comics. But there is always room to continue to grow.
Here are list of Hopes and Desires for the world of comics and comic related media for 2018.
1) Marvel Right the Ship. I am still enjoying a lot of Marvel stories and art but some aren’t very good. They have way too many crossovers and most have no real meaning. They have way too many of the same heroes. We don’t need multiple Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Thors. If you want to create an off-shoot character, then that is awesome but call them something different.
It wasn’t very many years ago that Marvel was easily outselling DC. DC figured out what they needed to do with Rebirth. They are now dominating. I would love to see Marvel figure it out and make Marvel Legacy mean something for them. I wish for sales to be high for all comic companies.
2) Continuing to Tell Good Stories. I hope for the continuation of new and cool and GOOD stories. I love the art but if the story stinks, the art doesn’t save it for me. I can deal with art that I am not crazy about if the stories are good.
3) Awesome in Smaller Publishers/ Independent Comics. There is a lot of great independent and small publisher comics out there. It used to be these comics were not as good as the comics with the big two but that certainly isn’t true. I cannot keep up with all of the great creator own comics out there. In 2017, I discovered Paper Girls by Image comics and it became one of my favorite comics. I am reading some IDW comics. There is a ton of independent stuff out there that I support with Kickstarter and other funded comics.
4) DC Comic Movies- Grow and Success. In 2017, DC Comic movies got a huge boost with fans. Wonder Woman and The Justice League were wonderful comic book movies. The DCEU is creating fun versions of their characters and fun movies with these two. Aquaman is the only DCEU movie scheduled for 2018 but they will be working on a ton of other movies coming in 2019 and 2020. I am looking forward to a bring future for the DCEU.
5) Marvel Comic Movies- Continue to Get Even Better. I look at the slate of KOOL MCEU and get excited. With the Black Panther, Avengers: Infinite War, and Ant-Man and Wasp, I am stoked for 2018 with Marvel Movies. I love what I am seeing with Black Panther and Avengers: Infinite War. I completely loved the Ant-Man movie and him in Civil War. I am excited to see the Wasp in action. This should be a great year for the MCEU.
6) Fox Marvel movies- Hopefully they won’t SUCK. Disney has purchased all of the movie rights and stuff from Fox. This does mean the MCEU will have access to both the X-Men characters and the Fantastic Four. But Fox has several movies that will be released this year that were already developed. Here is to hoping that Fox/Disney can put out some quality and KOOL movies before these characters are brought into the MCEU.
I am excited about the New Mutants movie that will hit theaters on April 13th. This movie brings some of my favorite X-Men related characters to the screen and make this into a Superhero/Horror movie based of the best New Mutants story of all time- Demon Bear.
Please don’t screw this up.Deadpool 2 is coming out on June 1st. I expect more of the same crazy and not kid friend antics from the Merc with the Mouth- Deadpool.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the latest in these rebooted X-Men movies from Fox. It will give us another take on the Dark Phoenix saga. It can’t be worse that X-3 which pretty much messed over every part of this awesome story form the comics. But after watching X-Men: Apocalypse, I am not hopeful for a KOOL take on this story. But I hope I am wrong.
7) Sony’s Venom- Hope this Movie Doesn’t Suck. I loved Spider-Man: Homecoming which was a combination of Marvel and Sony to create. Sony is taking their rights to the Spidey Characters and creating a standalone Venom movie. We have not been introduced to the Venom Symbiote. We don’t know how this will related to the Spidey universe and if Spidey will have any appearance in this movie.
I can’t imagine making this movie at this moment. Why not introduce the Symbiote in a Homecoming Sequel before making a standalone Venom movie? Set up the pieces and build on it rather than trying to shoehorn this movie and character. But I still hope it is well written. I am excited that Tom Hardy is starring is this movie as Eddie Brock and Venom.
8) Marvel Television Series to get even better. Marvel is successful with their television series especially those on Netflix. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has come on to be really good once again. They didn’t have success with the Inhumans series but I didn’t think it was that bad.Saying all of this, there is plenty of room to grow. They need to focus on making their series well written and acted. We know how a poorly written season can sink a series. Heck, we know how a poorly promoted season like Agent Carter Season 2 can sink a series. Keep it up Marvel and make your new series like Cloak and Dagger super awesome.
9) DC Television series to be less CW like. Yes most of the DC television series are now on the CW. But not every series needs to be written with teenage angst especially series that don’t focus on teenage characters. Not every episode has to feel like Dawson’s Creek. I hope they can make change and just tell good stories with fun characters.
10) Comic Fans Supporting Each Other. There can be something fun to give your buddy a hard time because they are a DC guy and you are a Marvel guy. But way too often of late, this has been taken way over the top. I can prefer Marvel but still like DC and support the KOOL stuff that DC is doing. If I am an independent comic guy, then I can be happy for my friends and fellow geeks that are into the big 2 Comic publishers (DC & Marvel). We need to learn when to just embrace our differences and have fun that our fanatic obsession of comics is doing well in 2018.
Stay Geeky My Friends!
