Retrospective 2010 - Part 4

RED

In October, RED aka Retired Extremely Dangerous arrived in theaters and outperformed fellow DC owned (Homage comics) actioner The Losers to the tune of $89 million.

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

The bigger event in October was the countdown to and debut of Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Disney released one 5 minute micro episode online each day for the 20 days leading up to the series premier. Avengers hasn't held back, airing 16 of its scheduled 52 total episode run in just 2 months giving various main and secondary characters a chance at the spotlight.

Superman / Shazam! The Return of Black Adam

In November, Superman / Shazam! The return of Black Adam headlined a rare misstep release from DC animation. The double short (20 minutes) itself was well done, though once again Captain Marvel and Superman are hardly lesser known heroes who were indicated as the targets for these shorts. The problem was that the DVD only contained this short and "extended" versions of the previous 3 shorts whcih had already been used to encourage purchase of pricier special edition releases throughout the year. In all the full priced purchase got you at most 60 minutes of content and at worst 20 minutes of content. The extended versions of the the shorts were also a joke as someone would have to watch them side by side to discern any difference. Sales were modest, and it looks like the shorts may be on hold, which is a shame becasue it was the marketing, not the quality, that fell short.

Megamind

2010 may have been the year of the super villain. The Summer offered up a huge hit with Despicable Me and Dreamworks hoped for a similar success with Master / Oober / MegaMind in which a super villain had to become a hero to thwart a bigger villain. In the end, the movie was not a big hit, earning nearly $150 million, and less overseas, in a very competitive computer animated market making a sequel unlikely.

Young Justice

The highlight of the Fall for me had to be the debut of the Young Justice animated series. The double length premiere saw Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Superboy (along with Miss Martian) forming a covert team under the supervision of the Justice League. The show has fantastic animation and a serious tone that played perfectly. The creator is fresh off The Spectacular Spider-Man series, the Web-Head's finest to date, and hopefully this lives up to that standard.

Firebreather

Following the debut of Young Justice, Cartoon Network also released the computer animated Firebreather movie based on a comic series about a kid with a dragon dad. I didn't catch this one.

Joker's Funhouse

One last gem that shouldn't be overlooked was the online animated "commercial" for Super Friends toys from Fischer-Price. The animated short titled The Joker's Playhouse is a work of genius and hopefully will find its way to DVD somehow soon.

And that my friends is a wrap. Twas a busy year but next year is going to be even busier. Imagine 2010, but instead of Vertigo and Homage Comics' unpowered "heroes" getting movies we will have Marvel and DC busting out some top tier super powered heroes. It should be fun.

Retrospective 2010 - Part 3

Super

Dwight's Crimson Bolt hit the Toronto Film Festival in September in the dark comedy Super. The movie will get a release in 2011, but time will tell if its the next Kick-Ass or the next The Rocker.

Superman Batman: Apocalypse

DC's third direct to video of the year didn't make quite the splash of the first two, but it was still a fairly decent romp. Between the army of Doomsdays, the Female Furies, and Darkseid himself, the fights compensate for a mediocre story.


Green Arrow

Accompanying the Superman Batman: Apocalypse movie was DC's third short film. Although the short was pretty good, it was a bit disappointing the Green Arrow got the spotlight when he is much closer to a household name than the Spectre or Jonah Hex. He has been on Smallville for years for crying out loud. Hopefully next year will bring more shorts focusing on some of the underdogs of the DC universe.

No Ordinary Family

The fall also brought a fantastical take on a super-powered family of four. Dad's got super strength and can "Hulk-jump," mom is the Flash, kid girl is a telepath, and kid boy is smart. I guess this is the closest thing we will get to a decent take on the Fantastic Four, though it feels an awful lot like an ABC Family show rather than a primetime ABC show.

Evolution of the Batman (and Robin) - Superman Batman: Apocalypse

Fall of 2010 brought the DC direct to DVD line its very first sequel. Superman Batman: Apocalypse was a follow up to Public Enemies, and an adaptation of the 2nd story arc in the Superman Batman comic, Supergirl. True to the source, Supergirl has a big presence here, but unlike the comic, Batman doesn't.

Although Batman is important to the story, as the movie goes along, he becomes more and more of a supporting character giving Wonder Woman and Supergirl a bit more of the spotlight (along with Superman of course).

Still, Bats did get a couple of good sequences, even standing toe-to-toe with Darkseid before fading away to let Supergirl and Superman finish out the movie.

Up Next: Young Justice

Batman Serial * Batman and Robin Serial * Batman '66 TV * Batman '66 Movie * Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder * Batman on Scooby Doo * Batman the Super Friend * The New Adventures of Batman * Batman '89 * Batman Returns * Batman: The Animated Series * Batman: Mask of the Phantasm * Batman Forever * Batman and Robin * The New Batman Adventures * Boo Wonder * Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero * Batman Beyond * Gotham Girls * Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker * Batman on Justice League * DCAU Crossovers * Birds of Prey * Teen Titans * Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman * Chase Me * The Batman * Batman Begins * Batman Vs. Dracula * Justice League: The New Frontier * Batman: Gotham Knight * The Dark Knight * Batman: The Brave and the Bold * Superman Batman: Public Enemies * Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths * Batman: Under the Red Hood * Superman Batman: Apocalypse

* Special Musical Edition * Special Christmas Edition * Special OnStar Edition * Special Never Happened Edition * Special Canine Edition * Special Joker Edition * Special Imaginext Edition

Retrospective 2010 - Part 2

Iron Man 2

Fortunately for Iron Man 2010 was surprisingly light for the superhero genre. The next few summers will be jam packed. But with very little in the way of competition Iron Man 2 wrangled $312 million, falling just shy of the original's take. While the movie was okay, it seemed that the movie was more of a place holder for Marvel buying time to introduce the rest of the team leading up to the ensemble Avengers movie. Perhaps, this should have been titled Avengers Part 0 rather than Iron Man 2.

Jonah Hex

DC countered Marvel's Iron Man with Jonah Hex. This lesser known wild west DC bounty hunter had the honor of following in the footsteps of Steel and Supergirl by ensuring the title character would not soon be returning to cinemas. The movie barely earned $10 million and pretty may have been the final straw for Megan Fox's short lived career. Seriously, Hex's appearance on the kid targeted Batman: The Brave and the Bold and his 10 minute animated short that were released this year were both way better than this pile of garbage.

Phantom

In June, SyFy finally aired its Phantom miniseries attempted to reinvigorate one of the classic superheroes. The presentation was okay, but it doesn't look like the miniseries did enough to earn the character a hoped or ongoing series.

The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan's name being attached to The Last Airbender didn't do the film any favors. Honestly, this movie never had a chance of capturing the heart or epic scale of the animated series, but it wasn't nearly as bad as people said. Earning just $131 million, the chances of completing the trilogy are unlikely, but hey at least we will always have the series.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

In my opinion, the best offering of the summer, and possibly the year was the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood direct to video movie. The film adapted the comic arc that reintroduced presumed dead Jason Todd (the second Robin) to comic continuity. This movie was really well done and is currently at the top of my list of DC's animated films.

Jonah Hex

Attached to the Batman DtV was an animated Jonah Hex short. This little gem gave the sense that the character just might be able to carry a movie of his own, just not the version that actually got made.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Pulling heavily from video games, the super powered Scott Pilgrim had to defeat seven evil X's to win the day and the girl. I knew going in that this movie was going to be different, but it truly was an original and very worth seeing. Unfortunately, its the kind of movie that is going to make pretentious teens feel like they are cool just because they saw it. It really is a shame it didn't do better in theaters. I haven't read the original graphic novels but the music, animations, and effects of the films were all spectacular and its hard for me to imagine this story in silent, still, black and white. The only thing I would have done is not cast George Michael. He was a real wuss.

The Disco Superman That Almost Was

Will Superman the Man of Steel looks likely to actually get made, one must ask, "Why is making a good Superman movie so hard?" My enjoyment of Superman Returns seems to decrease with each viewing and by now I wonder if Tim Burton's Superman wouldn't have at least been a glorious disaster:

Midgard Has Received the Official Thor Trailer

Pretty similar to the leaked footage, and pretty compelling.

Behold, The Monochromatic Thor!

... and his red cape. In all seriousness, this is a pretty cool poster. It will be interesting to see which does better next summer, Thor or Captain America. The Cap (to me) seems better known and more accessible, but Thor is getting the real marketing push. Maybe we will see Captain America get some publicity as summer nears. The Avengers are indeed assembling.