My Comic-Con News Round-Up Part 1

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another blog post. Now recently there’s been a lot of crazy happenings at the San Diego Comic-Con over the last few days and with all of the crazy and beautiful things I have read about I just had to blog about it. Oh and for those who either live under a rock and have knowledge of what Comic-Con is here’s a small summary, it’s basically a massive convention that takes place at the San Diego Convention Center every July every year and it showcases all things related to comic books, films, television, video games and so much more. It’s really a nerd’s paradise and its a place I’ve always wanted to go to for SO LONG! So today I am going to do a special blog post on all of my favourite happenings at Comic-Con 2012 starting with Marvel movie news and all the happenings surrounding their Phase 2 set of films. So here we go:

Iron Man 3

Now while I knew there was going to be many other big things going down at this big convention this year to be honest before Comic-Con even started the only reason I was paying attention to it this year was because of Iron Man 3. I’ve been following this sequel very closely since Shane Black was attached to the project and when Sir Ben Kingsley was announced as the yet-to-be-announced villain at the time. But time has moved on, we have gotten more casting information, concept art, production stills and many rumours and now here we are in the week of Comic-Con where we all get solid forms of information about the film, it’s characters a new logo (see above) and a solid look at the new armour Tony Stark will be rocking in the next film.

So from what I’ve understood reading up on IGN, Superherohype and EmpireOnline it seems like people who attended the Iron Man 3 panel were treated to some footage of the film. It was only around 5 minutes in length but it did get played for the audience twice and while I didn’t read the details because I want to avoid spoilers from what I gathered the fan response form the footage shown seems to be positive and seems to highlight the different direction Shane Black will be taking the Iron Man films into. One other thing that I was thankful for was the confirmation that Sir Ben Kingsley IS actually confirmed to be playing the classic Iron Man villain known as the Mandarin, when I saw those words on IGN the other day I felt so satisfied that they’d finally stopped messing around and decided to put him in third film already. It all sounds pretty exciting and I can’t wait, however there is one BIG thing I have saved for last that just NEEDS to be highlighted… The new Iron Man suit:

Now I don’t know about you guys but this suit wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, I mean the overall design of the suit isn’t bad, I think it’s just more to do with the choice of colour. I’ve always liked the classic red and gold look of the Iron Man suits, it’s just a look and style that works and really should be tampered with. But now it seems like they’ve reversed the colour scheme and now Iron Man has more gold than red and it is a bit off-putting and the funny thing about the gold colour is that it’s more a beige kind of colour and it just doesn’t fit very well. Now obviously this only a showcasing at Comic-Con and maybe the suit will look better in the film when it’s moving in action or maybe this is just one of the suit designs between the Mark VII and Mark IX, but only time will tell.

Thor: The Dark World

So here we have our new logo for Thor 2 now renamed as Thor: The Dark World. I think it was a smart move to give the Thor sequel a subtitle because I don’t think that Thor 2 would sound right especially when announced in a trailer format. Plus I don’t think that ‘Thor 2’ would sit very well with the whole god-like persona and mythology that comes with Tho rand the rest of the nine realms. Other than the new name changed there hasn’t been much developments or news for the next installment in the Thor films series besides a few bits and bobs prior to Comic-Con. The only major thing that’s happened recently is the fact that Mads Mikkelsen was offered a role as an unnamed villain in the film a little while ago, however it’s been confirmed recently that he cannot be in the film because of his prior commitment to his role in the NBC Hannibal TV series. But yeah other than that nothing else to mention really I really want to hear some juicy news about the next Thor film because next to Iron Man 3 its my most anticipated Marvel film yo.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

So along with Thor, Captain America’s sequel also got a new title and logo showcased at Comic-Con in the last two days. The new Captain America film will be entitled; Captain America: The Winter Soldier and for me this is where this film sequel gets interesting. As soon as I read the title for the Captain America sequel I grinned purely because I think I know the direction they will be going in. It’s in the subtitle. Winter Solider. Now for those in not in the know the Winter Soldier here’s a summary: Winter Soldier is actually the alias of Bucky. When Bucky survives the plane explosion a Russian patrol submarine finds him in the ocean missing one arm, he’s then taken to Moscow where he’s revived but suffers amnesia because of the explosion. He then get’s a bionic arm and is trained to be an assassin under the code name the Winter Soldier. To be honest I was hoping that Marvel would go down this route of the Captain America story as it seemed the most feasible and most-likely one to work in the modern-day setting, plus it could add a lot of drama and emotional weight the this sequel too if down correctly.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Okay now this was the film I really didn’t expect to see at Comic-Con this year, an actual confirmation that Guardians of the Galaxy was not only getting it’s film debut sooner than expected, but it was also going to be part of the Phase 2 Marvel films. Sure it had been mentioned before at Marvel Studios and it had been rumoured to have a 2014 release, but the fact that it’s actually real and that it’s actually happening is just astounding and very exciting! I mean considering how far-out-there this material is compared to the previous films that Marvel Studios have done, it really shows that Marvel are pushed the boat out with their source material and are going above and beyond to deliver new experiences for fans and newcomers alike. So if the cool logo design (see above) doesn’t spark your interest take a look at the concept art below:

This concept art alone made my interest in the Phase 2 Marvel films rise up a hell of a lot more. The fact that there was actual concept art for this film mean t that Marvel weren’t messing around and that they were series about bringing these larger-than-life characters to the big screen. I only found out who these characters were when a version of this group showed up in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, I was a little taken back by how out-there they were, more specifically the fact that they had a moving tree and talking racoon as part of their team. I literally said to myself “Thank god this is a cartoon, this sort of stuff would never fly in a live-action film.” And now we are here, at the starting point of a live-action adaptation of what could be one of Marvel’s most difficult properties to try and sell on the big screen. To me the Guardians of the Galaxy are sort of like what Green Lantern is to DC; a larger than life story, with characters and settings far beyond that of human comprehension that could only work in the world of fiction. Now the reason that the live-action Green Lantern film didn’t work last year was because it was a cluttered mess, that was CG heavy, featured too many weird places and people, but most importantly there was no sense of realism and grounded storytelling. Now because of this property Marvel could actually fall into that same trap and fail like DC did. However since DC did it first I think there may be a chance for Marvel to learn from that mistake and make a much better film so long as they have the right vision and director to house the film. 2014 is still a long way away but if Marvel play their cards right, Guardians of the Galaxy could well be Marvel’s most interesting film yet and tie-in to the appearance of Thanos in The Avengers 2 perfectly.

Ant-Man

The announcement of this film was also unexpected too, while there have been talks about this film’s existence for years and the fact that Edgar Wright and Stan Lee have had meetings about making the character in live-action and also more news this year bout the Ant-Man film still being in development, the fact remained that there hadn’t been any solid news on the Ant-Man film for quite some time, until now! Along with Guardians of the Galaxy and the Iron Man, Thor and Captain America sequels we also got a new logo for the long-awaited Ant-Man film which definitely means that Marvel are moving ahead with this film. I was also very happy to learn that this film would be part of the Phase 2 set of Marvel films which obviously meant that this was going to be a film under Marvel Studios rather than a company like Fox or Sony which was something I initially feared. Since Ant-Man is one of the founding members of The Avengers in the comics, but had yet to make an appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe line-up, one could assume that he was going to have to show up at some point and since he’s now set to show up somewhere in the Phase 2 set of films I’m well happy about the development on this film finally going forward. Another big thing to note is the fact that Edgar Wright made an appearance at Comic-Con to showcase some test footage he had made for the new Ant-Man film and even though it was unfinished, from what I’ve read the response to the test footage has been good and sounds promising. While not as complex and strange as Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel will have their work cut out fo themselves to try and make a superhero like Ant-Man seem cool, I never really cared for him until I started watching the current Avengers cartoon and saw that they was an interesting story to tell and while his powers are pretty interesting, one could argue it’s still not as cool as an iron suit or being a god or being a big green angry monster. Hopefully the right cast and crew are put together for Ant-Man and I hope that Edgar Wright will blow us out of the water with this comic book movie.

Okay people well that’s my fill of Comic-Con stuff for now, come back later in Part 2 when I’ll upload my thoughts on other stuff related to Comic-Con in the shape of more films, video games and possibly TV stuff too. Until the next time, laters people! 😀