Captain Marvel (a movie review post)

Of all of the things that Marvel has done well -- and they have done a lot of things well! -- perhaps the most impressive has been bringing in their intergalactic stories in a way that seems real and plausible. [Which, all things considered, is much more difficult than making their super heroes real and plausible.] Captain Marvel is no exception to that, and I'm extra impressed with their handling of the Kree/Skrull war, something I've been vaguely worried about since Guardians of the Galaxy came out.

Okay, actually, I've been worried about that since Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Kree/Skrull war having at one time been something largely dealt with in the pages of The Fantastic Four. And, well, Fox really fumbled the whole Silver Surfer/Galactus thing [yeah, sure, they fumbled the entire Fantastic Four thing, especially with their most recent attempt], but, then, that was Fox and not Marvel. Is anyone else looking forward to the return to Marvel of the FF and X-Men properties? Man, I sure am!

But I digress...

I guess the thing to know here is that Captain Marvel is another great entry into the MCU. All of their movies are so good, it's difficult to even know how to rank them anymore, so I can't say how great it is, just that it is. It's solid, which is especially important since it's a... hmm... prequel is not the correct term but, chronologically, Captain Marvel happens first of all of the MCU movies. And this really could have gone awry considering that Nick Fury and Agent Coulson are both involved in this story, Fury integrally so.

Technology is amazingly amazing. Seriously. We may not be able to re-age people for real, but the tech they used in Captain Marvel will make you think they can.

Brie Larson was a surprise, at least for me. I was rather ambivalent about her as the choice to play Danvers when they announced it. I didn't see Room (and have no real desire to) so my only real experience of her was from Skull Island, in which she was forgettable. But, then, it was a movie you want to forget, so maybe that's why. I have to say, though, that Larson nailed it as Carol Danvers, at least as she is in the movie (because I have no experience of this Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel from the comics). She was... well, a delight, which is not exactly what I want to say, but it's true. She's quirky and sarcastic and and has the perfect sardonic turn to her smiles when she needs to have a sardonic turn to her smile.

And her chemistry with Jude Law was great. Not any kind of romantic chemistry, it's not that kind of relationship, but their mentor/student whatever-it-was was perfect. Of course, Law is good in this type of role, very reminiscent of his Watson role alongside Tony Stark. Um.... I mean Robert Downey, Jr.

I also really enjoyed Annette Bening. Not only is it good to see her in something again, this movie really allows her to show some of the range she has as an actress.

Actually, all of the cast was great, which has been the standard with the Marvel movies. It's another thing they do well. Really well. Pretty close to perfection. DC, on the other hand... Well, I'd say they're somewhere around the same level as Fox showed themselves to be when they cast Miles Teller as Reed Richards. Seriously, what the fuck, Fox?

All of which is to say, you should see this movie. That is, you should if you like good stories, good acting, and fun. If you're old, stuffy, and snooty, and don't get into that "superhero stuff," you'll hate this, but it's your loss, man; it's your loss. People with good taste will love this movie. And, if you're planning on seeing Endgame in a few weeks, you should make sure you see this movie.

A Study in Super Heroes: Part Three -- Telling the Story

In many ways, prior to 2008, there were only four super heroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. At least, that was it as far as the world as a whole was concerned.

Let's just say that Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were already iconic characters around the world by the time Marvel Comics came into existence in the 60s, and Spider-Man, due to his cartoon and snappy theme song

was the only Marvel super hero to break into universal awareness the way that DC's trinity had.

However, the world of comics shifted in 1961 with the publication of Marvel's first super hero comic, The Fantastic Four. Marvel changed comic books from a medium that was character driven to one that was story driven, and not just the individual story but the world story. Marvel quickly became the #1 comic book company and, really, has remained there for the last 50 years.

That didn't mean that people, the mass of people, knew who Marvel's heroes were, though, because the 50s reduced comic books from something mainstream into a tiny niche group reserved for kids and socially awkward teenage boys. Until 2000, that is, when the X-Men movie came out. That was the turning point for comics becoming mainstream again, except as movies. (Because, honestly, comic books themselves are too expensive for people to be able to follow more than a few at a time.)

The success of X-Men and, in 2002, Spider-Man proved that super heroes other than Batman and Superman could support movie franchises. However, Marvel had licensed both of those properties to other studios, studios who proved that they didn't actually care about the stories involved, only in making money off of popular characters. Why worry about a good story when everyone will come see the movie anyway, right? (I'm especially looking at you, Fox, for making X-Men Origins: Wolverine.)

Marvel decided they could do better, wanted to do better, but they had already licensed out the only two properties they had (X-Men and Spider-Man) with any real name recognition. They would have to use characters whom people really didn't have an awareness of, and that would mean the stories would have to be strong.

And that's what they did. They told good stories.

I mean, not only did Marvel spend five years and five movies to work up to The Avengers, but Captain America: Civil War is a perfect example of how important story is to Marvel. Not only did they weave elements of two different story lines into a solid climax story, they did it with 12 super heroes in it, and they did it pretty flawlessly and with characters that most people had never heard of before Iron Man came out in 2008. The achievement is rather astounding. Sure, you need to have seen the other movies for this one to work, but that's what story-telling is.

On the other hand, DC, via Warner Brothers (who owns them), continues to struggle with building any kind of coherent story in their movie universe, if you can even call it that at this point. They continue to rely on the drawing power of their characters and what they think people already know about them rather than craft any kind of story that can hold water longer than one of those paper cups you made as a kid from folding up a piece of notebook paper. You can look at their most recent release, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, to see that. They don't even bother to introduce Wonder Woman or tell you anything about her other than that she was alive during World War I. They are all about the money and, if people will go see the movie just for the characters, why bother to add a story.

Not that that hasn't worked for them. To some extent. Batman/Superman did bring in $325 million domestically ($865m worldwide), but it took it more than a month to do that, and it was projected to break $400m (domestically), which it failed to do. In just 10 days, Civil War has pulled in $300 million domestically (and nearly $1B (yes, $1,000,000,000) worldwide). And we're not even talking about their Rotten Tomatoes scores. I think it's safe to say, at least where super heroes are concerned, at least for the moment, that story beats characters.

DC vs Marvel and How It Relates To Writing (pt 3): Vision

Comic books are one of the few purely American inventions. Along with jazz. And rabid consumerism. But comic books are my favorite. Really, I love comic books. Just the idea of them. Unfortunately, they are far too expensive to collect anymore. At least in a way that allows you to follow the stories the way the big 2 (Marvel and DC) want you to follow them. Or, maybe, it's just that I love all of them and can't stop myself. Well... except that I did. As I said, they are way too expensive to collect, anymore; although, there was a time... But I digress...

DC Comics started out as National Allied Publications in 1934. Detective Comics, the series that would eventually give DC Comics its name, debuted in 1937. Without Batman. It was what it sounded like: an anthology series of detective stories. But the world of comic books changed forever in 1938 with the introduction of Superman in Action Comics #1. The age of the super hero had begun.

And they couldn't stop there. Superman was such a smash hit that they wanted another super hero, so National hired Bob Kane to create one. The result, with the help of Bill Finger, was the Bat-Man who debuted as the world's greatest detective in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. A whole slew of characters spewed forth in the next couple of years: the Flash, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern to name a few.

Although these characters did sometimes interact with each other, as Batman and Superman did in World's Finest and many of the other characters did in Justice Society of America, really, each character was completely independent of each other and, often, the cross-over stories ended up contradicting each other or the character's individual titles. Continuity wasn't important. Each issue was a self-contained entity not to be bothered by the existence of other issues.

Marvel Comics started in 1939 as Timely Comics. Their first series was actually called Marvel Comics and introduced the first Human Torch, an android, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. Captain America Comics came along in 1941, but there were many other heroes and titles sandwiched in there. Timely became Atlas in 1951 as super heroes fell out of fashion in the midst of the McCarthy hearings.

As McCarthyism ended, DC powered a resurgence in super hero comic books centered around the Flash, Green Lantern and the Justice League of America. However, things were still status quo in the super hero world. No continuity. No concern for what was happening in other titles. Often conflicting origin stories for the same character. But all of that was about to change...

Stan Lee had been working at Timely almost since the beginning. He had a new vision for super heroes, a vision of a cohesive world in which the heroes interacted and faced real problems. Like adolescence. And bills. Marvel Comics was launched in June, 1961, and, although the Fantastic Four was not the first issue to sport the Marvel Comics logo, it followed not long after in November. The Fantastic Four introduced what would become known as the Marvel Universe and change the way comic books were written forever.

The important thing to notice, here, is that Stan Lee had a vision for Marvel Comics. He had a particular story that he wanted to tell. Not the individual stories in the issues of the various series that sprang from his imagination, but an overall story of a world in which super heroes existed. DC had never had a vision. DC, if you will, was nothing more than an anthology of stories, some of them great, but each story was isolated and could be taken out of the whole without affecting it. Marvel, on  the other hand, became one vast epic in multiple volumes all hinged on each other. You couldn't just decide to yank something out, because everything else built on what had gone before. Stan Lee had introduced continuity into comic books.

DC has been playing catch up ever since. They still don't have it right. Just this month, they have begun a re-launch of all of their titles with issue #1 trying to establish the DC Universe as a cohesive whole. This is something like the 3rd or 4th time they've tried this (I've lost count). The issue, here, is a lack of vision. The only vision is to compete with Marvel who has dominated the comics world since their inception as Marvel Comics. There is no vision to the over arching story, only to competing. Or, to put it more simply, to make money.

Let's jump to the movies. When Marvel began their production company, Marvel Studios, with Iron Man, they did it with a vision. Sure, they wanted to make money, to be successful, but the vision wasn't about the money. The vision was to make movies that existed within a cohesive universe. A movie universe where the characters would interact and depend on each other much like Marvel Comics started out in 1961. In establishing this vision, they have been able to construct excellent movies with excellent stories that are building on each other and telling a much broader-scoped story. Warner Brothers, as with DC, has attempted to just make blockbuster movies. They have no vision. Because they have no vision, what we get are movies like Green Lantern and Superman Returns. With Marvel, with vision, we get Iron Man and Captain America.

I'm not saying that DC doesn't have some good characters and hasn't had some good stories. And Warner Brothers has managed to produce the Nolan Batman films; however, overall, DC remains less interesting than Marvel because of their lack of vision to the story and to the world. Granted, DC never had a Stan Lee. Never had someone with a vision that introduced the characters and tied them all together, but it doesn't seem to me to be a far leap of logic to understand what Stan did and to replicate it. After five decades of trying, though, they  have failed to do this.

All of this comes down to one point: vision is important. In fact, I would say that vision is close to all important. Your vision. The vision of the writer. The vision of the writer to know what it is s/he is trying to do and the story s/he is trying to tell. Without vision, you end up with a collection of stories that just don't work together. In a novel, that just doesn't work.

Not to step on any one's fingers or toes, okay, well, maybe some toes, but one of the most common things I see on other writer's blogs is how they've become stuck. S/he was writing along, listening to the voices in said writer's head, and, eventually, got to a place where s/he didn't know what was supposed to happen next. Inevitably, s/he resorts to going back and starting over, gutting, major re-writes, or just plain abandoning that project and switching to something else entirely. This seems a lot like what DC has been doing for several decades, now.

I might sound like I'm advocating for plotting, at this point, over pantsing, but I'm really not. I'm certainly not a plotter. I hate outlines. In school, I only ever did them after the fact because they had to be turned in. Except for those times when the outlines had to be turned in weeks in advance of the actual paper, and, then, I would just hate the entire process of making the outline first. Don't constrain me with those things, man!

However, I always write with a vision, a plan, of what I want to accomplish. Always. I do know where it is I want to go, even if I don't know the route I'm going to take. I'm not saying that my way is right or better or anything like that. However, as often as I read other people talking about getting "lost" in their stories, I have to wonder if it's because the writer didn't have some kind of vision when s/he was starting out.

Of course, the other issue I see is people that are writing with their only goal being to get published. The story is not the goal, just being published. That results in ripping and re-ripping any given manuscript apart at every stray word of any agent or publisher that comes along. This strikes me as being what Warner Brothers has done in trying to get a blockbuster super hero movie out (other than Batman). They're not focused on telling the story; they're focused on what they can do to make money.

As writers, I think the only thing we can do is tell our stories. That should be our vision. Once we have a story, it's great to work on getting it published, but if we're focused on just getting published... well, we may get published, but we'll end up washed away in the tide of all the other writers who just wanted to be published. No one will care. No one will remember. And, unfortunately, it might even be that no one will read. Just another book with its cover ripped off and sent back to be destroyed.

As much as I don't like Twilight, I have to say that Meyer did have vision. Her story came first. Ideas of publication only came after she had her stories. Maybe that's what all the people that have flocked to her books can see... her vision for her story. Because, really, that's what people want to see, the vision of the artist. Not the artist's attempt to duplicate someone else's vision.