How we got to Civil War

One of the more highly anticipated movies of the year (now that Deadpool is out…) is the next Marvel movie, and the beginning of their Phase 3: Captain America: Civil War.

And there’s a lot of reasons to be excited: not only a bunch of returning characters from throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe (like most of the newly-expanded roster of Avengers), but also the first appearances of Black Panther, Spider-Man (who hasn’t shown up in any trailers yet!), and maybe more.

Add to that the fact that Civil War was a big deal in the comics, showing up regularly as a top storyline for Marvel. It ran as a massive crossover (hitting pretty much every title) from 2006-2007. So, before I got back into comics – not one that I got into when it was first out. Indeed, I only got to it for the LitFlix for Winter Soldier – and after seeing that movie, and reading the comics, I knew that Civil War was coming next.

But Marvel’s Civil War was by no means the first time that this storyline was seen – the decision that superheroes had gone too far, that they had too much free reign. Indeed, not the second time. Not the third. I would say at least the fourth – so let’s look through these titles before we get back to Civil War!

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Spider-Man’s joining in for Marvel Phase 3… and ruining all my theories!

As you’ve maybe heard, or as you may have just watched in the video I just embedded from SourceFed Nerd, Spider-Man has finally become a joint character with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After a long time of discussions, rumors, and hacking, Marvel Studios and Sony have come to a deal where their movie universes can join up.

This involves re-booting Spider-Man… again. Which is the sort of thing plenty of people are talking about, so I can leave that alone. Or better yet, I can link to We Minored in Film, with a great discussion of what this all means in regards to Spider-Man.

However, for me the bigger issue is the movie-release fallout. A while back I wrote up some initial thoughts about the Marvel Phase 3 movies, all of which I am excited for. However, a pattern emerged looking at them, a thought about how their stories might go together. And now, right smack dab in the middle of that we have a new Spider-Man, which is pushing back all of the movies. Except for the Infinity War. So all of a sudden how these movies interact with the overarching story is different! So let me swing (pun!) back through the schedule of Marvel movies, thanks to Spider-Man!

Marvel Phase 3 – They’ve Given Us Too Much to Talk About

Okay, when Marvel leaked their Age of Ultron trailer last week, I was excited. And we were starting to get some rumors on the next movie in the works, Captain America 3. It’s going to have Iron Man! It might be Civil War! With those little tidbits, I figured that would be it for a while. After all, we’re seven months out from the next Marvel movie, and we just got the first trailer for it…

Then last week, DC announced all of their movies between now and 2020. I haven’t even had a chance to talk about these – so check out the post about them on We Minored in Film to cover that! The announcements are both exciting and expected, as they are movies for the members of the Justice League. The Marvel equivalent would be announcing Hawkeye, Hulk, and Black Widow movies to go with the existing titles.

And I feel that there’s an element of DC forcing this play, but maybe it was always planned. Marvel announced all of Phase 3, all in one go! With release dates, subtitles, and everything! I should add, though, that it seems their plan was to announce all of these movies – and then show the trailer for Age of Ultron that evening. By which point, there would have been way too much for one day.

Alright, so to try to keep this halfway manageable, there’s a great article on The Mary Sue about the movie announcements already. So I’m going to add a bit of my own speculation and excitement about the movies!

Found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Comics

Update: Also, check out some thoughts from We Minored in Film: the good and the bad.

DC and Marvel Entertainment Franchises

Avengers Movie Poster from Marvel on marvel.com

It has been interesting to see how DC and Marvel have been handling taking their franchises into other mediums. Marvel has felt much more purposeful about their direction and intentions. Now I do not know when the decision was made to make the movies in this particular order, but the whole concept of Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III is brilliant. It gives you time to introduce the characters in a meaningful way and to give access to information that can lead to a larger threat. There is so much that they have done well, but then Marvel Agent’s of Shield has not had that same level of purpose. 

Unlike with DC where there seems to be this feeling that a Justice League movie could just happen and they would not have to put the work in to it. It will be really interesting to see how the new Batman versus Superman movie comes out, but it just feels sort of hodgepodge. Then you have them starting down an incredible path with Arrow where we have been introduced to a multitude of potential spinoffs. It is probably one of the more successful translations of the DC universe that I have seen. It is interesting to see how these two companies have chosen to market and sell their intellectual properties outside of the comic book world.

Marvel Movies and Shows Thoughts and News

Found on http://marvel.com/movies/movie/180/ant-man

So you may have heard, but Hank Pym has been cast for the Marvel Phase 3 Ant Man movie. And it’s Michael Douglas! So a big name coming in for our villain, something that has been happening a lot with the marvel movies – looking at Benicio Del Toro as The Collector, or James Spader as Ultron, for instance.

However, this is defining this movie in an interesting way. This is no young Hank Pym, early in his career, creating his science, being a superhero. It sounds like Paul Rudd is going to be doing the super-heroing as the actual Ant Man, so… we’ll see!

So I wanted to share some thoughts I had from this, but also then, some of the thoughts I’m seeing out on the Internets, about this and the Marvel movies – since I talk about them maybe enough here on my own! And a bit about Agents of SHIELD, as well, to round us out!