Batman v. Superman: The stupidest argument of all time

Apparently, you have to have qualifications before you can criticize movie trailers now.  You can't just chalk it up to taste anymore.  You have to prove your impartiality before you can speak on movies now.  I don't know where this shit started, but it really needs to stop.  The Batman v. Superman trailer was leaked over the weekend, and naturally, some folks didn't like it, but folks got mad when they dared express that online.  Like, more than usual.

We're talking about a movie trailer about a fictitious alien that wants to be friends fighting a fictitious rich guy with an inability to let go of the past.  It sounds like the plot to a Pixar movie, but people were acting like they were investigating a murder, trying to figure out the motives of people who didn't like it.  This isn't exactly serious scholarship here.  Taking on critics of this movie trailer isn't going to get you a job at The Atlantic.

It just blows my hair back when people get this serious over fictional characters, as if it's going to make a bit of difference either way.  Instead of people just enjoying the fact that we're all nerds, people are out here acting like people who didn't like it are going to block off the theaters in an act of censorship.  People are actually drawing conclusions about the characters of real, living people based on what they thought about a movie trailer.  Because, as we know, movie trailers are the modern iteration of Rorschach tests.

And the thing is, I don't think people defending the trailer really understand where the problem is coming from.  People aren't loving the way this movie is turning out (and the one before it) because it continues the Batman-ization of the DC Universe, and it was something that a lot of people could see coming after The Dark Knight came out.

See, Batman is grim and gritty.  He's tormented.  He wreaks vengeance on those who wronged him so that others don't have to suffer like he did.  Basically, this dude is broken inside and uses that to punch criminals until they're broken like him.  That formula for a superhero made Warner Bros. a billion dollars.  And because movie executives are generally unimaginative, they said, "Hey, Superman is having trouble.  Why not make him like Batman?"  You know, completely ignoring the context surrounding Superman's movies.

I mean, the problem with Superman Returns wasn't that Superman isn't tormented, it's that it was two and a half hours of washing Richard Donner's balls.  But who has time for a true examination of the issues?

And that's why Man of Steel is the way it is.  That's why Superman is morose, everything is dimly lit, and there's no sense of joy or fun in a single frame of the movie.  That's why Superman doesn't save anyone.  Superman lives in Batman's world now, and in Batman's world, you need to learn that life is shit.  

Except that's not the world Superman lives in.  Superman is supposed to represent all of those good things.  He tries to save people before he punches people.  He's supposed to inspire people to be good and do better.  He always tries to de-escalate the situation, even though he's powerful enough to turn the person in front of him into a fine, red mist.  That's what makes him Superman.  Of course he can kill everyone on Earth, but he doesn't want to.  He wants to show us a better way.  Even if he's existing in Batman's dark, depressing, basement of a world, at the very least, he needs to be that.  He wasn't, and right there is the difference in opinion on Man of Steel.

Superman fans didn't need for Superman to change.  Batman fans needed for Superman to change.  And Batman fans loved that movie.

That's why some people weren't excited to see the Batman v. Superman trailer, because they're worried that it's gonna be more of the same: A Superman that Superman fans don't recognize. And there's a huge possibility of that if the movie is based on "The Dark Knight Returns," a story that paints Superman as a government-owned bitch.  The only people who want to see that are Batman fans.  It has nothing to do with a secret love for Marvel or an inability to let go of the Donner Superman movies or any other of the silly shit I've seen thrown out there this weekend.  Maybe it just doesn't look that good to some people.  We're talking about art, not an arms treaty.

We won't know for sure until the movie gets released, but in the meantime, dial back the hostility.  We're all allowed to have opinions, and none of us need to justify them to you.

The Real Issue With the X-Men: Apocalypse Casting

Last week, Bryan Singer announced the recasting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm for X-Men: Apocalypse, and nobody really seemed to care, because who the fuck are these people?  They're like the cast of the new Fantastic Four flick, except for Michael B. Jordan. In fact, they're so anonymous that they might be the same people.  

The Storm casting did get some buzz from Storm fans, because she is once again being played by some girl who doesn't fit the Storm mold.  I get it, because everyone wants to see their favorites represented properly on screen.  It's the reason why I have decided that the Transformers movies are nothing more than a series of night terrors filled with slow-motion action shots and blurry metal shards that I can't wake up from.  Storm fans (myself included) want to see their girl shown as the powerful African leader that she is, instead of the sidekick to Jean with a white wig that she's become.  

But the really important issue with this recasting hasn't even been addressed:  We no longer have to watch Wolverine's love affair with Jean Grey that never made a lick of sense.  I assume it won't be there, because it would be really, really creepy.

See, I'm a masochist, evidently, because I've watched all of the X-Men movies.  And I watched them closely enough to realize that Wolverine knew Jean Grey for maybe a week, in total movie time.  So watching him tearfully kill Jean in the third one, and dream about her years after the fact, always made me sick.  I should have been crying, because I was the one who sat through X-Men: The Last Stand. 

That plot thread is something that is well known to folks who read the comics.  For a couple of decades, the comics teased the idea that Jean and Wolverine had a long smoldering attraction for each other, and in another world, they might have been together.  But Scott had that on lock (for reasons that continue to mystify us), so Jean would never act on it, even though Wolverine would sometimes press the issue.  

In the flicks, Wolverine met Jean, spent almost no time with her in the couple of days he tooled around the mansion, then left the X-Men for an undetermined amount of time.  He showed up back out there just in time for them to get invaded, and never saw Jean again until a few minutes before she died.  She was an evil zombie throughout the next movie, so it's not like she was in a position to further explore their relationship.  Wolverine worked hard on his chest to impress her, so her rejection forced him to kill her.  Some of this might have been made up, because that third movie was so awful, and I really don't want to watch it again.

But saying that Wolverine knew Jean for a week is being generous.  

It's kinda like in Man of Steel, where Superman and Lois have no reason throughout the movie to get together, but they still have to kiss at the end, because that's the expectation.  Wolverine is a dude who trusts no one and hasn't for decades, but he meets this girl who's already booed up, spends no time with her, but when she dies, he's suddenly so close to her that he's on the brink of tears?  And in the next movie, he struggles to kill her, even though he hasn't had a problem killing complete strangers since this trilogy started?  Even though these movies were supposed to walk their own path, Wolverine and Jean had to eye-bathe each other, because those were the times.  Even if it doesn't make sense.  

That's the kind of foolishness that this recasting gets us from up under.  Sure, Storm is still underwhelming (and probably wasn't going to be a big part of the movie, so they're just filling a roster spot), but we're just that much closer to a movie that makes sense.

Casting black actors as white characters is cool. Just not this time.

Just a heads up, this is probably gonna get a little nerdy.

So the word is that Michael B. Jordan, a young black actor, is in the running to play Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, in the next Fantastic Four movie. The Human Torch is white, so naturally, the comic book world has lost it's shit. 

Most people who don't read comics are probably like, "Good for him.  We need more black heroes."  Normally, I'd agree with those people, because I also think we need more black heroes.  Just not the kind who rhyme all of their dialogue, like they did when I was a kid.  More than that, I think we just need more positive and heroic black figures in these kind of movies.  It's important to see yourself represented in the media in a positive way.  Maybe if we had more of that, fuck ups like Benzino wouldn't be TV stars. 

I've actually written about this before, when I wrote about Miles Morales replacing Peter Parker as Ultimate Spider-Man.  Read it here, and tell me how good and smart I am.  Anyway, I explained why replacing white characters with black or Hispanic ones isn't that big a deal and won't cause the fall of the republic.  That change happened in 2011, and as best I can tell, Marvel is still in business.  If Fox goes through with casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm (I can't believe I haven't made a bigger deal out of his name), they're gonna keep being alright.  But I'm still gonna go the other way this time.

One of the big complaints about Miles Morales was that it felt like they were forcing a black character into that role, but that was stupid, because Marvel was killing off Peter Parker anyway.  Might as well throw a black man in there, because throwing in another white guy would be boring and expected. 

But forcing a character into a role is exactly what this feels like.

It would be one thing if it was a character like Heimdall, who was played by Idris Elba in the Thor movie, or when Kerry Washington played Alicia Masters in the other Fantastic Four flicks.  That was fine, and not because they're minor characters.  In fact, I'm cool with Laurence Fishburne playing Perry White in "Man of Steel," or Jamie Foxx playing Electro in the next Spider-Man, because making them black doesn't change the story.  You don't have to explain why this guy is black.  That's not the case with Johnny Storm. 

No, the word is that they're gonna say that Johnny Storm is adopted, and that's how his sister, Susan Storm, the Invisible Woman, is gonna still be white.  And that's the part that will bother fans the most.  They're changing the story, and not even for a good reason.  If you really want to make Johnny Storm black, then why not make his sister black, too, so you don't have to explain anything?  If you're gonna go there, then go all the way there.  Just be like, "They're black now.  And what?  Get used to it, because we're also gonna make Idris Elba the next James Bond." 

"Well, what if they introduced a brand new Human Torch who isn't Johnny Storm, but is still black?  Would that get those panties out of your ass?"  First of all, Straw Man, that was very rude.  But to answer your question, no, it wouldn't, but that's just because I don't think movies are the place for the director to experiment with "his vision."  That's how Superman became an emo stalker with bastard children.  Leave that shit to the comic books, where they can have another character come through and kill the mistake in the goriest way possible.

So just leave Johnny Storm white.  Not because Michael B. Jordan isn't a talented or even deserving actor, and not because I believe that white characters should stay white.  There will be other chances to piss off racists and bigots by trying to create a progressive comic book universe.  Like when they eventually cast Idris Elba as Iron Man.  Just let them come naturally instead of trying to shoehorn it in, like this one.

A Black Spider-Man Won't Be So Bad

Here lately, Marvel and DC have been making a few efforts to diversify their lineup of characters. Batman has been hooked up with a black guy named Bat-Wing. Mr. Terrific is getting his own book (that's likely to be cancelled within months, not because he's black, but because it's a book about a guy who's really, really smart). But the most controversial addition seems to be in Marvel's Ultimate Universe. Ultimate Spider-Man is now a Blaxican. Well, I guess he's Mexican. He's half-Black, half-Hispanic. I suppose I shouldn't assume.

From the few comments I read over at the IGN comment section, Miles Morales isn't going to be well-received. They don't like the forced diversity and feel that instead of just changing characters into black people, they should create original characters to reflect the diversity that Marvel and DC are trying to portray. One guy (I couldn't be bothered to go back and read his name; let's call him MrFantastic420) even said that changing Spider-Man into a black/Hispanic guy isn't true diversity at all.

And that shit is goddamn stupid.

Look, no one said anything about Spider-Man 2099 being a half-Puerto Rican Irishman named Miguel O'Hara, and it's the exact same thing. Furthermore, Nick Fury was turned into Samuel L. Jackson, and that was considered to be the most brilliant thing since we climbed out of the primordial ooze because we figured out that we didn't have gills. And that wasn't changing a guy's secret identity, that was changing the guy from Knight Rider into the guy from Pulp Fiction.

But that last point intrigues me: How is that not true diversity in comics? I mean, there's a black guy there where there didn't used to be a black guy. That's one more black guy than was there yesterday.

It's something that has been done before in comic books without controversy. Superman was replaced by four people once, and one of those guys was black. Ted Kord was replaced as Blue Beetle by a Hispanic teenager. Firestorm's two white guys were replaced by a black kid and his Asian girlfriend. It's nothing new. Tony Stark was replaced as Iron Man by James Rhodes. Hal Jordan was replaced as Green Lantern in the comics AND on the cartoon by John Stewart.

I guess it never bothered anyone that Rhodey was Iron Man or that John Stewart was GL, because we always knew that Stark and Hal would be back. But Ultimate Peter Parker is Ultimate Dead, which means, he isn't coming back. I suppose that's why it's a problem. Ultimate Spider-Man is an Ultimate Blaxican. Or Blackarican. Whatever.

But it's not Spider-Man. This is ULTIMATE Spider-Man. He's like, Earth-2 Spider-Man. And that's kind of the point of the character, and the universe, for that matter. They can try things that they couldn't do in the regular Marvel U without assholes claiming that someone just "spit in the eyes of continuity." That's why they have tidal waves wiping out whole superteams and Galactus existing as a swarm of bugs.

And while it's Ultimate Spidey and not regular Spidey, it's still a prominent position for a black man to be in. And Hispanic. Whatever. A black (Hispanic) man is now the top dog in a major comic universe. It's exactly like when Barack Obama become President, except that no one knows about it but comic nerds and the whole thing was made up. Okay, so maybe it's not like that at all. But it kinda is. A little.

It's makes sense to do something like this, because it's boring and predictable to make Spidey ANOTHER white guy. That's something that Captain America or Batman do (and DID. Even though it makes complete sense for a black man to be Batman. We merge into the shadows easier). Besides, creating whole lines of Black characters was also tried. How many years did Milestone last? Creating Black characters for the sake of doing it isn't a good idea, because that's how you get abortions like Rage and Night Thrasher. But in this case, it sounds like they have a story they're trying to tell, so I'm in.

It's so easy to write the whole thing off as "They're fucking fake, losers," but as a black comic nerd, I understand better than most what it's like to be force fed another minority hero. It's offensive and insulting. For a long time, I hated Luke Cage. HATED HIM. Luke Cage, Roadblock from GI Joe, The Junkyard Dog. All the time, I thought, "Why do you they all have to rhyme and dance? And what the fuck does 'jive' mean?" I was a very detailed thinker as an eight year old. But I wondered why black people couldn't just be heroes. Why do they have to be BLACK heroes? Where was my Superman? Where was my Hulk Hogan?

Here's hoping that for a younger generation of minority comic book readers, Ultimate Spider-Man (and Firestorm and Blue Beetle) can be just that.

And even at it's worst, it can't reached the depths of the time they turned the Punisher black. I'm still mad about that one.

On behalf of comic book fans everywhere...

“Why do people try to impress comic book fans with their non-knowledge of comic books? Since when did it become okay to try to impress the people whose stereotype includes not smelling well, living in their mother’s basement, and never, ever, getting any? These are not the people you should seek to impress, unless you’re one of the goth kids or anyone in the chess club. If you’re looking to impress someone whose ass you can kick without putting down the Big Mac you’re using to distract them, you’re in worse shape than I thought. Comic book fans are the kind of people who can easily waste three hours arguing about whether or not Wonder Woman is really bulletproof instead of venturing into the outside world to breathe air that doesn’t contain dust mites. Don’t ask me how I know that.

Look, I’m not going to be impressed with you if you’ve got 10 “Superman” #75’s bagged and stored in your closet. Seriously, I don’t care. Do you really think comic book readers sit around and compare notes on what they have in their collections? Well…sometimes. But most likely, we’ll discuss the mistakes we’ve made in our buying habits. No one but a comic book fan could understand my shame in proclaiming that I bought six “Savage Dragon” #1s because I wanted to make sure I had all of the different colored logos. They know what I’m talking about because they probably did it, too.

So unless you’re giving them to us for free, none of us care about your “collection of first editions, bagged and boxed,” because chances are, they’re something you bought in the early 90s, when everyone got sucked into buying comic books that they thought were going to be worth a fortune in 30 years. So allow me to burst that bubble, too: Anything you bought in between 1992 and 1996 is practically worthless. Millions of copies of that stuff was printed to satiate people like you, who thought they’d stumbled upon a gold mine. The comic book industry almost imploded as a result and Rob Liefeld became a star in the process. Thanks a bunch for bringing that upon us. No, comic book fans don’t care, so stop telling them. We’d rather know if you’ve actually read the story inside or who you think would win between Deathstroke and Captain America.

One more thing: Stop calling them “first editions.” You’re just giving yourself away.”