It's almost as if they're afraid that they won't get to make any more movies, so they've got to use this villain right away, or never get the chance. But honestly, it often overstuffs a film, already crowded with an origin story. And it often makes little dramatic sense, as the rookie hero probably shouldn't be able to handle "the greatest threat ever" the first time the put on the costume. Plus, it leaves the "where do we go now?" problem for subsequent films.
Yes, I'm looking at you, Fox, having to bring in Doctor Doom in the first FF movies of each iteration. Yes, I'm looking at the Daredevil movie, which tried to give us DD's origin AND Kingpin AND Bullseye AND Elektra, squishing 30-odd issues into an hour and a half, because they wanted to do everything cool right away.
So, when the forthcoming Justice League movie runs straight for the massive alien invasion/Darkseid bit, well, you know I'm trepidatious. I mean, the actual Justice League started off fighting a giant starfish...so what's the rush for Apokolips?
Especially when we could start the JL out with training wheels, because they could barely take these guys:
See, when you start out with the JL taking on Darkseid, who's going to believe that the Royal Flush Gang could give them a hard time? You ease into the big bads, guys. It leaves your team room to grow!
SPOILER ALERT: Snapper Carr saved them all. Because Silver Age. I guarantee you won't see that in the damn movie.
From Justice League Of America #43 (1966)
I'd like to challenge your assumption here (which you may not really believe, but you give lip service to here) that the first movie has to be an origin story. I came to comic books in the 1970s. Typically when you read a comic, 100% of the information you'd have on the character's origin would be in a one or two sentence narrative caption on the first page. Hell, in team books you didn't even really get that! This in no way ever dampened my enjoyment of a story. If you read a book long enough you could usually piece together details, but it rarely was a big deal at all. (Honestly, in the early days I was lucky to ever get to read a completely storyline if it took more than one issue, and I still loved those comics to pieces!)
ReplyDeleteAs proof I'm right about this transferring to movies: The Incredibles is widely regarded as one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. You know what we don't get in that movie? Any explanation at all about how and why the old school heroes got their powers or became superheroes. There is not a lick of origin for Mr Incredible, Elasta-girl, or Frozone. The kids have powers because their parents have powers. The story literally starts at the peak of their (original) careers. Have you ever heard anyone complain about this dragging down the film?
Of course you're right.
ReplyDeleteBut the movie studios don't, and they're almost never not going to give you an origin in the first movie, because a) they're lazy, and re-telling the origin is one less story they have to come up with themselves, and b) they're not bright, and assume the movie going public is not even as bright as they are and won't understand the hero without an origin.
I just love the Royal Flush Gang, but I think I love Amos Fortune solo better. The man discovered the presence of luck glandsin human beings, fergawdssake. Then he found a way to stimulate those glands to give himself good luck and the JLA bad luck, until he got trounced by J'onn J'onnzz saying, "uh, Martian - no luck glands here!"
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm saying is the man is Silver Age incarnate.