Nerd Exploitation

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LiveJournal Tags: Disney,Marvel Comics

A lot of nerds freaked the fuck out when they read that Disney bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion dollars, because they’re certain that Disney is going to destroy the franchise. I’ve got news for you: it’s a little late for that.
If you’ve skipped out on comics for a year or two, and are just returning to the pages of Marvel, here’s what you missed:

• Spider-Man sold his marriage to Mary-Jane to the devil to save his decrepit old Aunt May, who then returned the favour by marrying J.Jonah Jameson’s father, effectively making Peter Parker step-brothers with his worst enemy. There were a lot of scenes with Peter walking in on his Aunt and his new “daddy” having old people sex.
• Everyone was a Skrull at some point. They brought back a slew of characters no one remembers, or cares about like Mockingbird, under this ridiculous pre-tense. Spider-Woman was briefly relevant because of this.
• The Green Goblin controls the most powerful counter-terrorist organization on Earth, so he’s in every comic. There’s a lot of bad jokes about his hair.
• There’s a Red Hulk, nicknamed, “Rulk,” and he has dominion over Hulk’s comic. All the momentum built up from Planet Hulk and World War Hulk is dead as a result.
• There’s a “Dark” Avengers, with Venom pretending he’s Spider-Man and Bullseye playing Hawkeye. People are too stupid to realize that Spider-Man typically doesn’t eat people.
• The X-Men moved to San Francisco. Since they’re in San Francisco, they’ve added Northstar, the gay Canadian mutant, or the X-Men’s answer to “Bruno.”
• Shatterstar and Rictor from X-Factor (formerly of  are X-Force) apparently are gay, and have always been, despite there being no evidence to support this aside from Shatterstar’s incredibly gay top-knot. We find this out during a full-page spread of them making out.
• Captain America is dead, and he’s been replaced by Bucky, his former side-kick who was killed off in the 40’s for being too gay. Only: Cap’s not dead. He’s lost in time ala “Slaughterhouse 5.” The issue you have of his death is worth less as a result.
• Asgard from Thor’s comic is in Dr.Doom’s backyard now. Loki is a very hot chick, only he’s still a dude. It’s fucked up.

I could go on, but why bother? I want to talk about the movies.
Obviously the thing that concerns most people is how Marvel’s super-hero movies are going to change. FOX still owns the rights to certain heroes like the Fantastic Four, the Silver Surfer, Wolverine, etc. To keep these rights, they have to keep making movies. That means these movies are going to get made. So they’re just going to churn out these movies every couple years, no matter what the script’s like. You think the last Wolverine movie was bad? It can get worse.
As for super-hero movies in general, good ones are hard to find. For every Iron Man, there’s a Spider-Man 3. Nerds need to wake up and stop fantasizing about what their favourite characters will look like on the big screen. They’ll look like leathery nightmares played by Ben Afleck.