Emails #17: Marvel Alliance 2

BEN: Interesting design from the video game Marvel Alliance 2. (move the Flash graphic to the left)

RICK: Love the top half of Cap. Chain mail tunic looks very heavy and effective. Like belt. Needs weapon otherwise he looks like he is doing a home improvement show. Can do without ribbed legging however. Distracting. Shield is perfect. Looks heavy and made of solid steel. Colors also muted by dirt, diesel oil and blood. Looks like a frame out of our movie. Let's sue!!!

BEN: Agreed. I thought was thinking Cap's "feathers" could be made out of metal like Scale Mail. It would still be arranged like his suit whereas this is more straight-lined.

RICK: PS. Just WHAT does Iron Man think he is going to blast with his repulsor ray?

BEN: Heh, no worries, Cap wears adamantium undies :) Ever read "The Ultimates"? I'm getting a not-so-impressed feeling about it, but I haven't read or seen it. I guess Cap and the Avengers movies are going to be based on it. Meh. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/joshw24/news/?a=15101

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Ben,

Took a look at the few comments Mark Millar offered in the link you added. I do like the guy's work. I am not sure if the interviewer was looking for a certain reaction from him or not regarding the Ultimates and Cap/Avengers. If they couldn't pay the writer and artist a royalty, it would have been more than cricket to fly them in for a day to act as "consultants" and get paid that way. If they had come up with the whole thing themselves, it would be equivalent to Eastman and Laird making the Turtles movies. I understand that big corporations like Marvel/Disney don't want to do that and open the flood gates for artists to sue for lack of past compensation. They will probably not even receive a screen credit because that might be construed as admission of authorship.

Kick-Ass is a nice example of creators producing and own their own original material. The advice Millar gives is spot on. Work for big companies. Work for yourself. In essence it is the best advice that can be given under current economic conditions.

You have to ask yourself why Joe Johnston the director of Captain America: First Avenger even publicly stated that these were the issues he was going to base material on. First, any time you read a comic or graphic novel that is well thought out, has film-style pacing and packs a punch emotionally, as a director the impulse must be to see how it would adapt. There have been many poor adaptations of comics recently. V for Vendetta comes to mind. Despite exceptional source material, solid looking sets and good performances by Weaving and Portman, the film makers felt a overwhelming need to tinker with the carefully constructed and considered story. In the end, this tinkering in order to "make a good movie" produced a poor one. Second, perhaps the director is meerly throwing red meat to the comic base. I won't use the word nerd or geeks here because I find it to be insulting to diehard fans. Notice how any coverage of the San Diego ComicCon involves using either term to describe fans and then takes great pains NOT to show any actual comic artists, writer or comic books. There is a certain act of denial while at the same time pandering.

Freedom and Liberty,
RICK

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
-George Washington

I suppose that every novelist has something in common with a spy: he watches, he overhears, he seeks motives and analyses characters, and in his attempt to serve literature he is unscrupulous.
-Graham Greene - from "A Sort of Life"

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 © Activision. Marvel characters are registered trademarks of Marvel Characters, Inc.
V for Vendetta cover by David Lloyd © DC Comics