Lesson Learned

DC made big waves earlier this week by announcing new facts about the Man of Steel. Some people were upset and shocked by the news while others were less interested.

Superman is by far the character I’m concerned about the least, so I’m really not that concerned about what Dramatic Changes they’ve made to his origin story for the new reboot. Honestly, DC is setting themselves up for a perfect opportunity here. Morrison is a great storyteller, but has issues working well within continuity. The current Superman is causing all sorts of strife with the ownership lawsuits still roiling. Kris swears that Morrison’s All-Star Superman is one of his favorite stories he’s ever read. DC’s given Morrison a character he’s already proven he’s great at writing, moved him out of continuity since his stories since his stories are the origin of the new continuity, and told him to go nuts so things get changed enough that they’re not using the same character from the 1930’s but he’s close enough for people to recognize him on the street.

Its extremely hard to write stories around a well-adjusted and happy married couple without seeming trite, insincere, or saccharine. However, it’s much easier to write stories about coworkers who have no interest in each other slowly discover their feelings, have a touching courtship, and eventually blossom into the perfect relationship. DC said Lois and Clark aren’t together when The New 52 starts, not that they’ll never be together. Moving this couple back to the starting line gives DC years worth of romantic stories to play with, which means another angle to find new readers.

San Diego Comic-Con has gotten started so the studios are starting to push their new super-hero movies. First up, the teaser for Dark Knight Rises which shows off some footage that we’ve already seen, some jumpy CGI, and Gary Oldman looking sexy in a hospital gown. It’s no surprise that there’s not a lot of substance to this trailer as they are deep into filming right now. They had to have something to show for SDCC so they quickly threw together something appetite whetting but ultimately empty.

The trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man is a little bit more interesting although a bootleg cell phone video, so harder to watch. We see some establishing shots of Andrew Garfield enough to tell he’s playing Peter Parker more awkward and less nerdy then Tobey Maguire’s version along with Gwen Stacey and an eight legged friend. The weirdest part of this trailer is when it goes all first person action Mirror’s Edge style with Spidey the Viewer running and swinging from rooftops. I wonder if this was something done specifically for the trailer or if there will be sequences like this in the movie. I think a lot of those sequences would get old quickly, but I could easily see the studio making great use of them, especially in 3D. Hopefully, an official better quality version will get released of this and then we can get a better look at what things will be like.