The Marvel-ous Past

 

 

 

 

 

The past comes up as I grow older.  My father operated a gas station/garage all his life.  When I was younger, he also catered to the lake crowd. (We lived on the edge of Lake Texoma, which for years was a weekend mecca for Dallas and other residents, in the days before Dallas built their own lakes.)  He stocked his store with groceries and even had a magazine rack.  He would go to the magazine stand in Denison, the next town over, every week or so and restock his magazine rack with various magazines and comic books.

(BTW, the operator of that magazine stand, called "Main Street News", was known to me as "Hightower", Only his last name was known to me, and I always called him that.  He eschewed being called "Mr.", at least as my memory serves. He was the father of Jim Hightower, however, a Texas politician and author, so if I really wanted to do some research I could find out what his first name was.  Maybe Jim Hightower himself will read this post and enlighten me...)

Anyway, among the stuff that my father would get were comic books which included such things as superhero comics. And since I was in the store all the time, I got to read any magazines he had.  I always preferred Marvel over DC, mainly because the characters had more human foibles.  Superman rarely had anything more complicated in his personal life than keeping his identity a secret from Lois Lane.  But Spider-man, on the other hand, was originally just a kid who dealt with the problems that young guys had to deal with as well as his new found abilities.  And, my favorite character, The Thing (from the Fantastic Four) was actually a grousing cranky geezer who often bitched about everything.

There were various attempts to bring Marvel characters to the big and small screen over the years.  Captain America (1944) got a 15 part serial featuring Dick Purcell, although that character had a drastic change from the comic book origin.  In the comic book, of course, the character was a soldier who got dosed with a super serum that transformed him into a super soldier, the Captain America of the serial was a district attorney  And he wasn't a superhero in the sense that he had been given super powers.  He was more like Batman, just an average Joe who dressed up in a costume to fight crime.

There was a long time before any other Marvel characters would be given a chance to shine.  The next time would not be until the 60's when The Fantastic Four and Spider-man got their shots at the screen, albeit as animated cartoon series, Both aired in the late 60's. Live action would not return for several years however.

One of the first attempts was with Captain America (again). Starring Reb Brown, these were decent, but got mixed reviews, so a TV series was not produced.  Several years later, in 1990, another attempt was made at the TV screen, with, once again, Captain America and starring Matt Salinger. This attempt, too, was not a huge hit.  Captain America, it seems was not as popular as he was when fighting WWII villains like the Nazis.

By the time Marvel was ready to try theaters again, it was the 21st century.  The first to get a shot was a band of superheroes, the X-Men, featuring Patrick Stewart as the mentor, Dr. X. The first X-Men (2000) opened the door for a few sequels, as well as some other superhero characters from the Marvel vaults. Spider-Man, featuring Tobey MacGuire generated a trilogy of movies and The Fantastic Fouralso got a couple of films. Between 200 and 2007 some 15 movies were released featuring on or another of Marvel characters.

But the real heyday of Marvel films began with what is now referred to as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which had a running story line, with all of the characters in it eventually melding to a final confrontation in Avengers:Endgame in 2019.  And the MCU story line continued on after that movie with a new story that continues even today.

Next year (beginning in January 2024) , I have plans to cover the entire run of the first three phases of the MCU story, beginning with 2008's Iron Man.  As the plan is now, these will appear one per week, and the plan is to review each one in order of their appearance in the theater. (I had originally thought to do it in a historical time line of the films, but I like this idea better, because it simplifies things.)

Most of them I actually saw in the theater when they were released.  The coolest thing, and one that many people were slow to catch on to, is you HAVE to watch the whole movie, including the credits, because at the end, after credits rolled, there was always a tantalizing teaser of the next installment in the series. Sort of like those 15 part serials from the 30's and 40's, if you ever watched any of those. (As a side note: Apparently producer Kevin Feige got the idea from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which had an after credits scene with Ferris (Matthew Broderick) addressing the audience. ("Are you still here? It's over. Go home")

OK, so come back next year for the films.  I'll still be here until then doing other stuff, not to worry, but the MCU saga will be started, hopefully, Jan. 6)

Quiggy