Avengers Assembled and Delivered

Avengers movie one sheet

I have waited since I was eleven years old to see something that just captures every bit of imagination I have, and be able to see what I imagined and have it properly translated on the screen. In 1978 Richard Donner achieved it with a movie called Superman The Movie and did it again (well seventy some percent of it with the help of Richard Lester) in Superman 2. Back then I read mostly Marvel, with the exception of a couple of  DC titles. Teen Titans, and Justice League, and Batman. As for the Marvel titles I was reading Avengers, Thor, Iron Man, Ghost Rider, Dare Devil, Marvel Team up, The Defenders, Conan the Barbarian, King Conan, Savage Sword of Conan, What If, and a little book called the Uncanny X-Men. At that time a toy company called Mego, had released 8 and a half inch action figures of Superheroes from both Marvel and DC, and I had collected them. This was before action figures that were small enough to put in your pocket. I had been an avid watcher of The entire series of Superfriends cartoons, Spider-man, Spider-man and his Amazing friends, The Incredible Hulk, and The Fantastic Four, minus Human Torch who was replaced by a robot named Herbie.

I had been waiting for a perfect translation of the characters I read to appear on the screen. It didn't matter if it was on a t.v. screen, or a movie screen. And sadly in the late seventies, to the late eighties, only the animated series seemed to be doing justice for Marvel and even then they were still having to change things to make it "kid friendly".  Hulk, Spider-man, Captain America, and Doctor Strange, had appeared on tv in either two hour movies of the week, or short lived series that just didn't capture what was going on in the comic books I was reading. (Although you still have to give credit for The Incredible Hulk lasting five seasons) Superman had captured it for DC, Wes Craven's Swamp Thing had come close despite the limited special effects, and Tim Burton's Batman became a nearly perfect translation to the screen. But Marvel had yet to release something of that caliber. It took a second tier Marvel character who was re-imagined to finally get the ball rolling for Marvel. A film with a character called Blade. Bryan Singer helped with a near perfect interpretation of certain Characters in the X-Men franchise, but capturing the X-Men at their potential fully has yet to happen, though Magneto, Professor Xavier, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Shadow Cat are the closest they have come. Then came Spider-man. The first Marvel Movie to really make me say Wow Finally they have done it. Unfortunately it was followed by Ang Lee's Hulk. Well DC had had their mistakes too. Return of the Swamp Thing, Batman Returns, Batman and Robin, so I wasn't too hard on Marvel. When Iron Man made me go Wow again, and you see Sam Jackson for the first time as Nick Fury my interest was heightened.  It was a perfect combination of Classic Iron Man from the seventies and eighties that I was reading as a kid, but also borrowed from relatively current stories, like Extremis, and The Ultimate Line of comics that were re-establishing Marvel characters for today's generation of readers. I couldn't wait to see how they were going to follow up, especially with the Avengers being dropped in a line of casual conversation.

It fired my imagination and made me ask the following things. What would the Line up be? Would they be able to do with the Avengers what had yet to be done with an ensemble group like X-men. Would changing actors damage continuity (specifically Hulk)?  How would they tie everything together? With the rainbow Bridge gone, how would Thor be able to return to Earth? And thankfully they haven't let me down yet in preparing for Avengers. Most importantly they achieved it in Avengers and answered every single question and concern I had with Avengers.

Let's start with the questions I had. (Spoiler alert)

What would the Line up Be? Well Iron man has been an Avenger since the very beginning if you followed comic continuity so Iron Man was obvious. Avengers almost the entire time I have read the title have had three pillar characters. Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. After those characters you can take your pick, which is why Avengers as a comic title has evolved because they are the only group who has had just about every major Marvel superhero or heroine be a member at one time or another. I assumed, since they were using the Ultimate version of Nick Fury, the line up would more than likely be the Ultimate Avengers line up. And technically it was. The only two characters missing from this version are Hank Pym's Giant Man, and Janet Pym's Wasp. So when Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2, I had a clue of what the line up was going to be.Thor and Captain America the First Avenger firmly established the line up, finishing the three pillars and introducing Hawkeye in Thor.

Would they be able to do with the Avengers what had yet to be done with an ensemble group like X-men? My answer to this is an emphatic Hell yes. Unlike the X-men which more or less uses Wolverine to propel the storyline along, Avengers manages to devote time to each and every character in Avengers so no single character is driving the narrative. They all are. No single character is more important than the other. And each one has a specific arc they follow. Even in the case of Hawkeye who was a slave to Loki for three quarters of the movie, he is still driving the narrative. You learn exposition through Hawkeye, of Loki's intent.  You have Nick Fury trying to utilize the team knowing the danger the earth is in and like in the comic only telling the Avengers what they need to know to try to get the job done, You have Thor trying to make amends with Loki and trying to stop Loki from using the Cosmic Cube to destroy earth, You have Captain America trying to adjust to being in this time after being in suspended animation, and trying to figure out what his place is, You have the Black Widow, trying to repay a life debt to Hawkeye, You have Iron Man trying to figure out what Nick Fury's angle is in all of this, and you have Bruce Banner, trying to do what is being asked of him while trying to maintain control and not change into the Hulk. Every character is serviced. No one character is taking to being a background character like what happened in all three X-Men movies. Even seemingly minor characters like Agent Phil Coulson, Dr. Erik Silvag, and Second in Command of Shield Agent Maria Hill.

Would changing actors damage continuity (specifically Hulk)? Changing actors happens in movies, Bond being a prime example, and every one is going to have a favorite. With in the Marvel movies it's happened. Sometimes due to salary negotiations, sometimes due to an actors character involvement, and sometimes due to audience expectations and impact of performance. In X-men three different actresses played Kitty Pryde but only Ellen Page will more than likely be remembered. In Iron Man Terrance Howard played James Rhodes, and was replaced by Don Cheadle for Iron Man two. Both men did a good job playing the same character. But three different men have portrayed The Hulk. Eric Banna for Ang Lee's Hulk, who did an okay job. Ed Norton was the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk and there is no denying he helped significantly on the Hulk Reboot of establishing Banner's character, Norton was also instrumental in terms of story and structure,so much so that his fingerprints are all over The Incredible Hulk. When typical Hollywood problems arose for pre-production on Avengers Ed Norton was out. Surprised, but not really alarmed, I went with the casting of Mark Ruffalo. I've never seen a bad movie with Ruffalo in it. And Sometimes it comes down to what is best for the actual movie. For Mark Ruffalo Avengers was going to be a very tough and complicated gig. One that he had no problems pulling off. Mark Ruffalo did a fantastic job, as both Banner and the Hulk.

How would they tie everything together? Marvel  was extremely smart in making sure that every film stood on it's own but also continued to have a subplot trailing all the way back to Iron Man. First SHIELD is established. War Machine is alluded to, when Howard looks at the Mark II suit and says "Next Time." Then at the end of Iron Man, Nick Fury is introduced with a sentence talking about the "Avenger Initiative". That little subplot got the ball rolling. Although on it's own is a nice easter egg for fans of the comic.

In The Incredible Hulk a few more things are established. Between Emil Blonsky and General Ross there is the discussion of the Super Soldier formula Which alludes to of coarse Captain America, and ties in the Hulk's accidental creation with Captain America. Blonsky ends up becoming a super soldier when he first fights the Hulk, and that battle sequence also establishes that the U.S. Army is using weapons technology built from Stark Industries to battle the Hulk. Of coarse this formula mixed with Banner's own dna transforms Blonsky to the Abomination as well as opening the doors for Sam Stern to become The Leader. At the Coda of the film Tony Stark makes an appearance and again the Avengers Initiative is brought up.

Iron Man 2 brings in more important elements. War Machine as a character is established, Howard Stark is talked about as being one of the founders of Shield as well as establishing ties with Captain America. When Tony constructs his particle accelerator he uses a half completed Captain America Shield to use as a level when assembling the accelerator. Establishing the unknown element which can be interpreted to be a synthesized version of what powers the Cosmic cube Black Widow is established, Coulson and Nick Fury return, and at the coda, Mjolnir (Thor's Hammer) is found in New Mexico.

Thor stays pretty straightforward it's own film until we pick up what happened after Coulson's phone call to Nick Fury seen at the end of Iron Man 2. Hawkeye is established as one of the agents guarding the find, Dr. Erik Salvig, alludes to previously working with Bruce Banner, and is well aware of the existence of Shield, it establishes the tree of the universe that Thor draws in the notebook of Jane Foster and how Asgard relates to other realms including the earth realm. And at the end, it firmly establishes Loki being the villain this Avengers Initiative will have to deal with in the future. The Coda introduces the Cosmic Cube and ties it to Asgardian technology(called  the Tesseract though not revealed fully until AVENGERS with Loki seemingly in control of Dr. Erik Salvig.

Captain America-The First Avenger ties up the lose ends already established in the earlier four films, and includes and establishes Howard Stark's involvement in the Super soldier program. It answers the question of How Nick Fury and Shield procured the Cosmic cube, after the Red Skull had found the object and  with the help of Arnim Zola turned it's powerful energies to  destructive weapons found in a Norse Temple, behind a mosaic of the Tree of life, alluding to what Thor drew in Jane Foster's book in Thor. It also establishes Hydra who will be seen again in future movies, as a foe for the Avengers, and again the coda of shows the formation of the Avengers with Captain America being the first full fledged recruit.

And the final question- With the rainbow Bridge gone, how would Thor be able to return to Earth? Well that answer is because it's finally revealed that The Cosmic Cube being Asgardian technology, Heimdal was able to trace it's energy and send Thor to it.

Avengers tied everything together nicely. As a Comic Fan I had absolutely no problems other than one element of Thor's encounter with Iron Man, however that can be overlooked when actually giving thought to what energy is actually powering Tony Stark's current armor. Character and story were not sacrificed, and even though it has a little bit of trouble starting at the beginning that can be overlooked just understanding how much exposition still had to be established to get the Avengers together. Although the movie has been criticized by some, as a comic book reader, and as a fan, I have absolutely no complaints at all. Especially after seeing Thanos a major Marvel Universe villain at the Coda of the Movie. Avengers was everything and I do mean everything I had hoped for in a Marvel Movie. Josh Whedon directed a fantastic movie, and kudo's for every one involved.

Who Watches The Watchmen? In this case the Fans

When Watchmen was released in 1985-1986, I wasn't reading DC Comics regularly. I was going to school at O'Connell Junior high trying to perfect my drawing style, and was reading Marvel titles almost exclusively, particularly X-Men, and Avengers. It wasn't that I didn't like DC comics. Most of my favorite characters are from that line, but in that particular year there had been a maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths that was effectively changing all I knew about my favorite characters and so a lot of them were going through reboots. Supergirl and the Flash, had been killed with Wally West taking over the Flash identity, Superman and Batman were being rebooted under the directions of Frank Miller and John Byrne. And since Watchmen didn't fit into any continuity of titles I was reading I passed on picking up the 12 issues. Although I liked the artwork. Besides being thought as a geek, and feeling misunderstood, I found X-men more relative to what I was going through back in 1985-86.

Flash Forward to 1989. In trying to learn as much about the comic book industry, I was picking up as many books as I could about the histories of my favorite companies.At the time I wanted to be a comic writer/artist, and felt the more I knew about the industry the better chance I had at being able to be hired. So I dove in, learning everything I could. In all the books I was reading, there was always a chapter devoted to The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, and The Watchmen, By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The two titles were so instrumental in changing the face of comics forever, I finally decided I would read them, to see what made the titles so ground breaking.

Being an avid reader of comics, a normal reading of an issue takes about five minutes. A graphic novel between twenty to thirty minutes. Watchmen was so dense in it's material, it took me almost two weeks to completely read all the way through. And when I finished I wasn't sure exactly what I thought of it. Was it the greatest comic book story ever written? Not upon my first reading. In fact it took me three or four readings over the next couple of years before I understood all of the material, and actually understood why all the hype, accolades, and awards.I understood why it was included in the top 100 greatest English speaking novels of the Twentieth Century. But why?

What made Watchmen different was not only the denseness of the material, but how intelligent, and thought provoking all the narratives were and the complexity of those narratives being interwoven by the story's end. The story is very complex, from it's plot of the main story, to it's subplots, and the analogy in the narrative, using the comic with in a comic "Tales of the Black Freighter" which is what the character Bearnard is reading by a news stand during the duration of the story. The artwork was just as intelligent. From it's structure, From it's color scheme, to it's panel construction, to it's symmetry. I also began to understand why the property was declared almost impossible to make into a movie. Which had been a "Hollywood project" since it appeared in Time Magazine, and Rollingstone as early as 1987. It's narrative was at times too sophisticated for a common film going audience.




Flash forward 2008- The Dark Knight was to become to me the greatest comic book film and in fact my favorite movie of all time. And Watchmen was in production. Shortly before Dark Knight's release Zak Snyder had been the go to guy to finally get Watchmen off the ground. I followed the pre-production of the movie with interest, knowing what he had done with the abstract graphic novel 300. But I reserved judgment about the project. I remember talking to J. Sean about Watchmen, since I was being asked about it a lot from co-workers who knew my love of comics and comic book related film. I answered their questions almost in apprehension. There had been a boom in the movie going audience going to see comic book related movies. And even though a lot of the movies have been good, and successful, aside from Dark Knight and a few others, comic book movies haven't been the most thought provoking. And when I finally saw the first trailer for Watchmen, I worried.


The reason for the apprehension? It was two fold. A- I wondered how closely the movie would adapt the material, and how to make a three hundred page story fit within a two hour movie even with Zak Snyder at the helm. What plot lines would be dropped, how close would it's translation be? Would it have to be dumbed down for the general public with some of it's narratives, and if close to the source material, Would the audiences get it? Oh I knew initially upon it's release it would make tons of money it's first weekend, and that it's audience would drop off after. But the question always came back- would the audience get it? I wasn't fully convinced. It was this conversation I had with J.Sean, who ended up reading the material even after I had, I didn't read it until late 1989. The most common question was so what's it about? That isn't the easiest question to answer when it comes to The Watchmen.

"Well.." I'd begin.

The story takes place in an alternative 1985, where Richard Nixon has won an unprecedented number of terms and is still President of the United States. America and the Soviet Union are at the brink of the Cold War becoming a reality. Tensions are at an all time high, and aside from two costumed adventurers sanctioned by the government, Super heroes have been outlawed, or forced into retirement. One of the two Government sanctioned heroes, called the Comedian is murdered, and the main plot involves the outlawed Hero Rorschach trying to investigate who killed the Comedian. That is the main story. The main sub-plot involves Dr. Manhattan, the only super powered hero who is losing his humanity, and how his very existence is changing the lives of everyone he is in contact with, some of them with devastating results. Among them Silk Spectre, who is a second generation hero, taking over the mantle from her Mother. She leaves Dr. Manhattan, and to begin a relationship with the second generation Nite Owl, who was the former partner of Rorschach. Also involved is Adrian Veidt- Ozymandias who retired, but has turned his identity into a multimillion dollar conglomerate, but has a growing concern over the impending war. The secondary subplot follows Bearnard a kid at the news stand who during the story is reading a comic book entitled "Tales of the Black Freighter" which works as an allegory to the mental stability of one of the main plot's characters. It's not an origin story of the Watchmen, and other than the detective aspect of the story, it's not really an action story, or a popcorn story at all. Not what I would call an action movie property. Knowing even with the high fan boy base, it's numbers wouldn't be even close to Dark Knight. A lot of that had to do with the advertising campaign.



While it is the perfect Comic book Fan boy movie, as close to a literal translation of a graphic novel as I have ever seen, just as I suspected it wasn't a huge world wide phenomena in popularity that say Dark Knight or Spider-man was. I compare it to Lord of the Rings in a way, as far as the faithfulness of it's source material. However, Watchmen doesn't have the world wide audience, or for that matter the fan base that Tolkien's Trilogy had. The story isn't as clear cut as the Rings Trilogy. There isn't a clear cut narrative with quick pacing. Watchmen is a pretty lengthy movie. For what it had to put on the screen it's understandable, but what makes it different is the pacing that say The Dark Knight had. The Dark Knight is a long movie, but it moves. By the time it's over it doesn't feel like you have spent three hours watching it. The narrative and pace drive the movie so it feels quick. The exposition is given on the run, not so in the case of the Watchmen. In Watchmen exposition is handled exactly like it's handled in it's source material, Flash backs of a particular character's recollection, which at times slows the pacing. I'm not sure what the general public was expecting when they walked into the film. It was showy, and flashy in the trailer, and they made it clear it was considered one of the greatest graphic novels of all time...but if you aren't into comic books, who cares? The sad thing about certain properties are that even though you try to make it appeal to the "Larger audience" sometimes the material doesn't allow you to. And I think in the case of Watchmen, that was the case. And Judging the numbers of the movie's box office take, this appears to be the case. My hat is off to the actors, and Zak Snyder for attempting and succeeding in being faithful to the source material, and giving the comic book fans a great adaptation. My only regret is the source material doesn't allow it to be appreciated to a mass audience.

The Comedian, Nite Owl,Ozymandias, Rorschach, Silk Spectre

Why? Partly because it wasn't written that way. The book was written in 1985 during the heart of the Cold War. It's not like Spider-man who is a kid trying to grow and mature and face responsibilities, while having to serve the public as Spider-man and the complications it causes. It isn't The Batman, who is trying to keep his city safe and above all prevent and eradicate crime, while trying to stop a foe who is his equal. It's an examination of the concept of Superheroes, and how even having them, the world is every bit as dark even though they are around. It's hard to feel empathy to any of the characters save maybe Nite Owl, or Rorschach, and even then Rorschach you should feel a little disturbed being able to empathize with. The Comedian is an asshole and a scumbag, which even in the comic makes it hard to feel any sympathy for, and it's his murder that is the heart of the plot. There isn't a big over the top villain really, it's more of a psychological look of if there were actual super heroes, would we need them, and how would they play in our every day lives. It isn't a popcorn movie. It isn't a three hour thrill ride that feels like it lasted an hour.