Thor remains cool if for no other reason than that he represents a pantheon and cosmology other than the Judeo-Christian one. From videogames (Diablo) to comics and movies (Spawn, Preacher, Constantine, etc.) and TV series (Carnivale) I for one am tired of the whole business of angels and devils and sin and the war of souls and whatever the fuck excuse some lazy-ass writer has concocted to slap superpowers onto the Judeo-Christian mythos.

Admittedly, the Thor writers have not exactly been scholars of Norse religion, but Thor gets to fight storm giants and world-spanning serpents and pop around on Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, and so forth. It's kinda refreshing even when it's not all that well done.

Whereas people getting powers via the bite of a radioactive spider makes PERFECT SENSE. Comic books are an artform of the absurd. Whereas Thor is not my cup of tea (I am looking forward to the Dark Knight), I am eager to see how it will translate to the big screen.

I would like to see DC explore some lesser known properties like Doom Patrol or the Spectre (it would make a cool horror movie!), but I am not holding my breath. I have always been more of a DC person, but Marvel has been much better about putting out films.

Jeez, knock it off with the defeatism. If that's to be our future, let's at least enjoy our last summer of hoping for something better before resigning ourselves to that particular dystopia. Save the crying about how fucked we are with Crazy Grandpa McCain until it's a reality.

I'm not a superhero person at all, though I have a soft spot for Batman and I intend to see the Ironman movie as soon as possible (I was busy drinking in the woods this past weekend). The rest of these sound... awful. Captain America can suck it.

The new Hulk movie with Edward Norton confuses me. I mean, we just had a Hulk movie a few years ago, which totally sucked. Why make another one right now, with a completely different cast? Do they expect us to just forget that this was already done not that long ago?

Worked for Ironman. It boils down to a basic Robot vs. Robot plot.

Yes they are pretending the last Hulk Movie didn't exist. Just like Rocky V and Superman III and IV.

Shia is playing Yorick? Uneasy feelings about this. Have you seen his sideburns in the Indy trailer? He's my new ZB.

I DO like superheroes (in addition to the less spandex-y comics championed by the indie comics aristocracy), but agree that Thor, Cap, and the Avengers will all be Ghostrider by another name. Maybe Nick Cage and Ben Affleck can co-star.

But if these flicks prove to be half the Saturday afternoon entertainment Ironman is, I'll eat my hat. Not really.

**have fun watching the Red Balloon and enjoying your own sense of self-satisfaction

Still, the nastalgia from my youth was X-men, spiderman, and batman. All three had excellent villans which made for great stories. Thor? Hulk? and sadly Iron Man didn't have great villans. The best thing about Iron man was his own conflict was himself (terrible alcoholic!)

And then there was war machine, who I always thought had a cooler costume and better storyline anyways.

Josh Wheedon attempted a Wonder Woman film, and gave up.

The climax takes place on a Zepplin over the Artic Circle. The Cap defeat Red Skull, blows up the Doomsday weapon or whatever, but falls into the ocean. They can't find him. Captain America is presumed dead. Everyone is sad.

Cue remarkably brief end credits.

"65 years later". A team recovers a frozen Steve Rogers from the ocean. The medical team revives him and he's greeted by Tony Stark who tells him that America needs its Captain again...

Cue actual end credits.

Plus, while Captain America might possibly be the single most difficult character to write for a post-Watergate United States, Ed Brubaker, who relaunched the title a couple of years ago, has proven it can be done and done well. Paranoia-style.

I hear they cast Mr. Poe for the "After" part of the new Hulk movie ...

I completely agree with you. And also (kinda) with @24. BUT, Strange and Thor have worked together often, as had Strange and Hulk in the Defenders. You can't judge all superhero movies on stinkers like the FF movies and the last X-Men. Hollywood ran out of original ideas a long time ago -see how many movies are adapted from novels-, so why not keep crankin' out these kind of movies? The new Batman is gonna be great, and I'm not just sayin' that 'cuz I got to work on it as a stand-in. As long as they keep the spirit of the good story arcs from the original writers, they are going to be fine and I will keep going.

So there.

Imagine the possibilities when several (presumably) proven money-making franchises all merge into one super-mega blockbuster? It's a potential gold-mine for Marvel, and one that could give them the financial resources to wipe the floor with DC, which to-date has done a piss-poor job of integrating the various celluloid versions of their characters ("Smallville" ironically being the sole exception) into a single, cohesive, "world" on-screen.

@9 SPOILER ALERT There's already Ultimate Nick Fury in Iron Man, and though they used the 616 origin (modernised), they clearly used the Ultimate Iron Man personality. They may call it Avengers, but it's going to be Ultimates, which will be fucking awesome.

@30 - Oh yes, so awesome that we'll get Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch incest! Thanks, Mark Millar and Jeph Loeb!

@10: I'm a longtime Spectre fan since I first saw him in Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I have a hard time imagining what his movie would be. To have any drama he'd need to be depowered by a magnitude of 1000.

Now, I could easily see him playing a role if they ever made Hellraiser: The Good Version.

@31: No shit. This whole "Quicksilver could only love the Scarlet Witch, and it keeps her from destroying everything!" angle is a craptacular. Ultimates Volume 2 was amazing start to finish; this one, not so much.

Zounds!