I think I just had a geek girl-gasm!
The Fun of Building a Brand…
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And A Trademark In the Process… So many writers think of doing a
Kickstarter campaign for a new book or a series of old books as a way to
make some small m...
20 hours ago
I'm surprised she wandered all over the related-characters map, even talking about the Marvel/Thor version of Enchantress, but didn't mention that DC already has a media-based Suicide Squad in their TV properties. We've seen Amanda Waller and Deadshot and a number of other Suicide Squad members on the Arrow series on TV. I think the woman who played Waller in the show (too lazy to look up her name) did a great job, with the caveat that I never read Suicide Squad in the comics. Although I agree with some fans who were griping a few years back when they changed from "fat" Waller to "hot" Waller -- there are so few women in the various comics universes who aren't conventionally hot-n-sexy, but also aren't caricatures [coughEttaCandycoughbarf] that it was very frustrating to see them erase a heavier character who was still smart and competent and powerful and turn her into yet another pin-up girl. :/ I'd love to see a heavier Amanda Waller with the Serious Buzz Cut in the movie.
ReplyDeleteAngie
Out of all the teams in the DCU, I was simply shocked Warner Bros. greenlit Suicide Squad. Let's face it, they've had a ton of trouble getting a JLA movie off the ground, so this is their alternative?
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. I lean more toward the lesser known titles. I'd be perfectly happy if WB did a Legion movie or Marvel a Alpha Flight one.
And there's always going to be controversy. Someone's always going to be offended. The internets blew up over Will Smith playing Deadshot in the Squad movie, too. Welcome to the 21st century where no one bothers to hide their bigotry anymore.
I can't talk about Arrow since I haven't seen it. (Ollie's never been one of my favorite characters.) But I have a little faith. WB hired Viola Davis for the movie. She's my age and not exactly a stick figure. She's also a terrific actress so her portrayal of Waller will be interesting.
When I was into comics, I was a big Green Lantern fan (Hal Jordan for the win! :D ) and I read some Green Arrow because they were always buddies. [Note that it was because I was a huge GL fan that seeing the previews for his movie made me avoid it like the plague. [shudder]] I didn't jump right onto the arrow TV show right away because most of what DC has done in the media has sucked except for the three Christian Bale Batman movies. But I heard that other people liked it, and then when it got the Flash spinoff, I decided I wanted to see it. I talked Jim (who doesn't usually DO binge watching) to watch the first season with me, then we started DVRing the third season shows (along with first season Flash) until the second season went up on Netflix, binged that too, then started watching S3 of Arrow and S1 of Flash. [pantpant] They're very different, but they exist in the same continuity, and they're both excellent shows. TV's Ollie Queen isn't the cartoon Robin Hood dude with the dorky beard. TV Arrow is very dark, very serious. And John Barrowman plays a recurring villain. :) Highly recommended.
ReplyDeleteI read a decent amount of Legion as a kid and wouldn't mind seeing a movie of them either. Although some of the characters.... Sorry, but Matter Eater Lad would have to go. [facepalm] DC never had a great handle on naming characters.
You know what'd be fun would be the Legion of Alternate Heroes. :D Did you see the... I think it was a mini-series, four issues, where Superman was on his way to the 50th century or something when he caught Ambush Bug, and couldn't wait (with time travel available to him I don't know why not, but anyway) so he made a quick stop off in the 30th century to drop Ambush Bug with the Legion. Except they were out on a mission, so he left AB with the Alternate Legion. Hilarious chaos ensued. :D That was a classic story. They could just film THAT and I'd be happy to pay ten bucks to see it, hee!
Angie
I have to ask how Black Canary is handled on the show before I try Arrow. I was so PISSED how things were handled in Birds of Prey. Not even Capt. Jack would be enough to convert me if they don't do Dinah right.
ReplyDeleteIf they did a Legion movie, I would want the Silver-Bronze Age Legion, not the retconned crap. No matter how bad the names are.
No, didn't see that AL mini-series.
I'm a little ticked that the comic book shop in town has closed. There's stuff I wanted to track down when I got here.
Canary is... complicated. And it's kind of spoilery, if you ever do watch the series. I'll try to be kind of general, although there's going to be at least one big spoiler. :/
ReplyDeleteThe Lances are important supporting characters. Quentin Lance is a detective. He has an estranged wife named Dinah, played by Alex Kingston, who's always worth watching. Dinah is not (or hasn't yet been, anyway) Canary. They have two daughters, Laurel and Sara, one of whom was Oliver's girlfriend before the series starts up. One of the daughters becomes Canary in the second season, with a pretty cool backstory. She's an incredibly good hand-to-hand fighter, and has some tech that does a sort of a sound-bomb thing that she uses periodically; she doesn't have a sonic-whammy type superpower. She goes vigilante in the bad part of Starling City, mainly going after guys who've abused women, or are in the process of attempting a rape, that kind of thing. She does a damn good job of it. She's not Canary anymore, and there's some speculation among the fans that the other sister might eventually become Canary.
Arrow doesn't do a lot with comic-booky code names. Oliver is called "the vigilante" at first, then "the Hood" because he wears a green hood to help hide his identity, and eventually people start calling him the Arrow. Roy Harper is just Roy; I don't think the media's noticed him enough to start calling him much of anything. Oliver called his younger sister Thea "Speedy" when she was a kid, which was a cute Easter Egg type thing, but that's it. Canary was a member of the Legion of Shadows for a while, and they seem to speak a Tibetan-type language (no clue whether anyone did enough research to make it accurate) and all their assassins get code names in that language. Canary explained at one point that her name in the League was "[something in their language]" which meant "the black canary." The gang started referring to her as Canary after that, if they were in a situation where they couldn't just use her name.
Flash is a lighter show, and there's a guy on Flash's team who's a huge fanboy. He has a great smile, he's a complete dork, and he gets all bouncy-excited whenever they run into another metahuman. He gives them all cheesy codenames, so most of Flash's villains have their familiar comic book names. The tone of the show is very different, though. They've done some crossovers, and it's interesting watching the two groups of characters mix, and visit each other's cities.
Anyway, I don't know whether you'd like how Arrow has handled Black Canary's character. It's definitely not lifted right out of the comics.
Angie
LOL I'm not quite that anal that a different media has to be EXACTLY like the comic book. I like what the X-Men movie did with Rogue, but not how the comic then shoved that persona into the comic book version.
ReplyDeleteI LOVED the Birds of Prey comic series when it was introduced in the early '90's. I LOVED the idea of adding Huntress to the line-up in the TV series. I HATED that they made Dinah Lance a psychic who's the daughter of someone calling herself Black Canary. It sucked. But if they have Harry Dresden and River Song as BC's parents, then it's something to check out down the road. *grin*
If Captain Lance ever pulls out a drumstick, I'll be cheering. [snicker]
ReplyDeleteI loved the BoP TV series. [nod] The handling of Canary (both mother and daughter) was very weird, but in the comics she was a florist who fought crime in her spare time, so.... [shrug] And her flower shop was named to honor Arrow, not her (Sherwood Florist) making her even more of an accessory to the dude-hero rather than an individual. I liked Canary well enough in the comics, but she was never one of my favorites, so the changes made for various media have been cool with me.
I also loved that Barbara Gordon kept going after Joker put her into a wheelchair in Killing Joke. (Awesome graphic novel.) I haven't read comics in a long time, but I heard they retconned that out in the recent revamp...? :/ Hey, we've got a disabled character who's still strong and competent and contributes a large (non-token) chunk of the work to the group's aim of bringing in bad guys, so of course they've got to erase that. Much with the headdesking. Every time I hear about something like that, I fail to regret not getting back into comics after my destitute period in the 90s.
Angie