The Ubiquity of Comic Book Movies

This isn't any kind of deep thought, just a musing that his hopefully amusing.

I remember when comic book movies were few and far between.  Superman was essentially it until Tim Burton gave us his wonderfully fun Batman.  There were others in between like Howard the Duck.

But we do not speak of Howard the Duck.

After Batman, there was some movement on developing other comic properties like Judge Dredd and Spawn.  But then when Batman and Robin stank up the box office, nearly all comic book movie productions ceased.  This was, I think, a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, I love comic books and I love movies.  That is why abominations like Batman and Robin wound me so deeply.  I want the products to be good.  Then years later the X-Men movies brought a maturity to the material that became reflected in loads of other great comic book movies like The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Man of Steel, etc.

And now this has spilled over into television with hit shows like Smallville, Arrow, Agents of Shield, and soon we're going to see more shows on Netflix and the CW like Daredevil and the Flash.

Not only are these movies great fun, but they are also big business.  Hence there has a been an astounding proliferation of these films.

But here's something I find in my own thought.  When I think of the actors and actresses in these movies, I quickly identify them with their characters.  This is something that has been a problem since George Reeves played Superman.  But it was limited to a select group of actors.

Now that there are so many movies, I cannot help but reflexively think of the comic book characters the actors portray.

I just saw The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and as much as I didn't want to think it, I couldn't help but see that both Mystique from X-Men and Aquaman from Smallville were competing in the arena.

When I saw Thanks for Sharing, I was surprised that the Hulk and Pepper Potts had such poor chemistry with each other.  But I did note that Robin and Black Widow made a good match in Don Jon.

This is not an observation left to only current films.

When I think of Juno, I think of it as the movie with Shadowcat, Elektra, Scott Pilgrim, Judge Dredd's partner, and J. Jonah Jameson.

-Silver Linings Playbook is the love story between Mystique and Rocket Raccoon

-The Phantom Menace finds Ra's Al Ghul helping Dr. Jane Foster against an evil assassin played by Toad.

-Les Miserables has Wolverine being chased by Jor-El and raising the daughter of Catwoman.

-Speaking of Jor-El, I loved him in LA Confidential with Lex Luthor, Vicki Vale, the Penguin, and the Mandarin

-I still can't get over that Thor is Captain Kirk's father.

-Enchanted is where animated princess Lois Lane comes to our world and is persued by Prince Cyclops.

-Jungle Fever is that movie where Blade and Nick Fury are brothers.

-Secretary (a movie I want to make clear I have never seen) is about the abusive relationship between Rachel Dawes and Ultron

-The Pineapple Express (a movie I have unfortunately seen) is about the Green Hornet and the son of the Green Goblin running away from drug dealer killers.

-The Proposal is where Green Lantern/Hannibal King/Deadpool takes his fake fiancé to Alaska to meet his dad, Mr. Incredible.

-Bruce Almighty is the movie where Lucius Fox gives the Riddler the power of God.

-Sherlock Holmes is a movie where Iron Man takes on Sinestro.

-Star Trek Nemesis is where Professor X finds out that his cloned younger version of himself is Bane.

-The movie Date Night has cameos with Shane from Walking Dead, not to mention the Hulk and Wonder Woman

-The 2001 comedy Big Trouble features Thor's mom, the guy who gave Captain America his powers, and Angel from X-Men

-Twins is the story of Mr. Freeze and the Penguin on a road trip to find their real mom

-Sunshine is the movie where Captain America, the Scarecrow, Dr. Moira MacTaggart (X-Men: First Class) , Shingen (The Wolverine),  Mr. Kim (Kick @$$ 2), and Fire Lord Ozai (The Last Airbender) have to reignite the sun and fight (again) Sinestro.

-I like the scenes in The Lord of the Rings where Magneto talks with the Red Skull about the fate of the ring.  And then the Red Skull fights with Perry White in that abandoned building in The Matrix.  That was after Perry White got in a bicycle race with Sebastian Shaw, who also was involved in a conspiracy with Two Face to frame Commissioner Gordon for the assassination of JFK (while being investigated by Pa Kent and Merle Dixon).   Speaking of Gordon, I'll never forget when we was a demonic Transylvanian vampire and fought the Rocketeer and Odin, the latter of whom would fight a giant bear alongside the Shadow, who would teach Daredevil/Batman how to fly a plane over Tokyo after he and the Kingpin helped Frank from Red destroy a giant asteroid headed for Earth.

Do you have any others?  Share them in the comments section below.