REASON: Captain American Exceptionalism

My latest for Reason is online: "Captain American Exceptionalism".

Artificial intelligence: threat or menace?

The great thing about the British tabloids is they never let a strict adherence to the truth get in the way of a headline. Take this one from The Daily Mail: "Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk sign open letter warning of a robot uprising." Pretty ominous, huh?

Artificial intelligence has loomed as a threat to humanity ever since Victor Frankenstein reanimated his first corpse. A.I. dooms us all, whether on Earth ("Terminator" and its sequels) or out in space ("Battlestar Galactica"). If we're lucky, we'll just end up ruled by a despotic supercomputer, as in Joseph Sargent's 1970 thriller "Colossus: The Forbin Project." If we're not lucky — boom.

Two movies now in theaters take different approaches to the A.I. menace. In "Avengers: Age of Ultron," A.I. is the latest threat confronting Marvel's cinematic superheroes. "Ex Machina," meanwhile, confronts us with just how thin the line between intelligence and artificial intelligence really is.

The curious thing about Marvel's movies is they're action movies where the action is typically the least interesting part. The Shaw Brothers, Marvel is not. And "Avengers: Age of Ultron" has a lot of action. It starts with a raid on a Hydra base — Hydra being the bad guys from the Captain America movies and TV's "Agents of SHIELD" — and ends, like the first "Avengers" movie, with a huge battle involving our heroes vs. an army of disposable drones. And no, that's not a metaphor for the United States' preferred form of modern warfare. In his second outing for Marvel, Joss Whedon still directs action scenes as if they bore him, and they probably do. They're just this thing he has to do because they're expected, and his disinterest is contagious.

The one action set piece that isn't a snooze is the much-promoted heavyweight bout between the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo's CGI stand-in) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) wearing his just-for-the-occasion "Hulkbuster" Iron Man suit. One-on-one combat, punctuated by clever quips, beats Michael Bay-style melees every time.

The big bad is an insane robot named Ultron, voiced with malevolent glee by James Spader. Spader needs only his voice to rank with Tom Hiddleston's Loki among Marvel's best villains.

One of Stark's science projects gone awry, Ultron is supposed to protect humanity. Then Ultron decides the best way to do that is by making humanity evolve, and nothing speeds along evolution better than a global extinction event. Oops.

It makes one long for the more modest aims of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, plotting to dump California's coastline into the Pacific to further a real estate scheme.

Whedon, who also wrote the script, is on more comfortable turf dealing with characters, and "Age of Ultron" gives him plenty. Joining the previous film's team are "Godzilla's" Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, while Paul Bettany, Stark's helpful A.I. Jarvis in four earlier movies, finally shows up in the flesh as the Vision.

The verbal sparring between Stark, Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), along with the budding romance between Ruffalo's Banner and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, keep lively what otherwise, like "Iron Man 2," feels more like a warm-up than the main act.

"Ex Machina" is definitely a main act, and it's a brilliant one. Screenwriter Alex Garland ("28 Days Later") steps behind the camera for an impressive directorial debut.

Billionaire tech mogul Nathan (Oscar Isaac) invites one of his programmers, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), to his secluded home for an experiment. The experiment is to test whether Nathan's android Ava (Alicia Vikander) has achieved artificial intelligence. But when Ava tells Caleb that Nathan cannot be trusted, it kicks off a battle of wits that leaves us to ponder not only what it means to be human, but whether the real danger of artificial intelligence isn't a lack of humanity, but too much of it.

Garland has crafted a first-class sci-fi thriller, with so many twists and red herrings that the ones you see blind you to the ones you don't.

"Ex Machina" may be the smaller film about A.I., but it leaves the bigger impression.

Culture Shock 04.16.15: 'Daredevil' brings Marvel back down to Earth

One particular scene marks when Marvel's "Daredevil" goes from being merely good TV to being something special.

At the end of the second episode, Daredevil — although he isn't yet called that — fights his way through a gang of Russian mobsters in order to rescue a kidnapped boy. The entire fight plays out in one long take, no cuts and no trickery. With its bare-knuckle brutality and seemingly effortless cinematography, it immediately draws comparisons to the extraordinary hallway fight in Chan-wook Park's 2003 film "Oldboy." One rarely sees such compelling fight scenes in movies nowadays, and never on television. If anything, "Daredevil's" fight surpasses "Oldboy's."

If there's one thing "Daredevil" does well, it's fight scenes, but the show does a lot of other things well, too.

All 13 episodes of "Daredevil's" first season debuted on Netflix last Friday to near unanimous raves. Count this review among them. The first of Marvel's five planned Netflix series, "Daredevil" brings the far-flung Marvel Cinematic Universe, which took off into deepest space with "Guardians of the Galaxy," back down to street level, specifically New York City's Hell's Kitchen.

This is a New York still rebuilding following the events of "The Avengers," and one man wants to see the city rebuilt according to his own grand design, and heaven help anyone who stands in his way.

Wilson Fisk (a perfectly cast Vincent D'Onofrio) may lack the Red Skull's Cosmic Cube or Loki's godlike powers, but he more than makes up that deficit with sheer physical menace. He's Marvel's most fully realized villain to date, in large part thanks to D'Onofrio's mercurial performance.

A man-mountain barely concealing both volcanic rage and childlike insecurities, Fisk has never truly grown up. But he has grown powerful, and from Hell's Kitchen's shadows he runs the most fearsome criminal organization in the city. He owns the cops, the courts and even members of the media. And he's looking to expand.

That places Fisk on a collision course with Hell's Kitchen's self-appointed defender, a masked vigilante dressed in black who is chipping away at Fisk's empire.

When he was 9 years old, young Matthew Murdock (Skylar Gaertner) was blinded while saving a man from being run over by a truck carrying chemicals. The chemicals took Matt's sight, but they heightened his other senses to superhuman levels. He can hear cries for help across town, tell when you're lying by your heartbeat, and smell a hit man’s aftershave two floors down.

He's also an expert in martial arts, thanks to being recruited and trained by a blind martial arts master and all-around jerk named Stick, made likable by Scott Glenn's endearing portrayal.

Yes, that sounds a lot like the old TV show "Kung Fu," a fact the show acknowledges with a sly grin, proving you can do gritty street-level superheroics without losing your sense of humor.

Now an adult, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights for the innocent by day as a lawyer and by night as the "man in the mask." Like I said, he's not Daredevil yet, but he is on the path.

As not-quite-Daredevil, Matt has one ally, Rosario Dawson as the nurse who patches him back together. As Matt Murdock he has a few more: his law partner Foggy (Elden Henson), their client-turned-secretary Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) and investigative reporter Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall).

Cox's Matt Murdock makes us forget Ben Affleck was ever miscast in the same role. Cox brings humor and drive to the character, and endows him with charisma to spare.

Show runner Steven S. DeKnight, taking over for Drew Goddard, who dropped out early into production, ably treads the fine line between genres. By the time Matt finally puts on his red costume with the horns, it feels natural. The Marvel Cinematic Universe happily accommodates the spectacle of the movies, the family-friendly adventure of ABC's "Agents of SHIELD" and the adult crime drama of "Daredevil." But those of us who grew up reading the comics already knew that.

PR: Marvel talks 'Star Wars' No. 1

Star Wars returns home to Marvel Comics in this week's highly anticipated Star Wars No. 1 by writer Jason Aaron (Thor, Wolverine and the X-Men) and artist John Cassaday (Planetary, Uncanny Avengers). (It was worth the wait. — FH)

To make sure the entire galaxy knows it, Marvel has released this promo video. Enjoy.

Marvel celebrates return of 'Star Wars' license by ruining original books

One bit of fallout from Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm is the return of the "Star Wars" license to Marvel Comics, which published the original "Star Wars" movie adaptation back in 1977.

To celebrate, Marvel is reprinting those original "Star Wars" comics in a collection to be released in May. That's the good news. The bad news is Marvel is giving those comics the "special edition" treatment.

From Marvel's press release: "Written by Roy Thomas with art by Howard Chaykin, this iconic story has been remastered for the modern age [with] all-new coloring by Chris Sotomayor."

As you can see from the before-and-after sample Marvel provided, the re-coloring is a disaster. It's as if George Lucas went back and inserted a lot of new CGI characters for no good reason. Wait. That happened, too. Anyway, here's a look. The re-colored version is on the left (click to enlarge):

I bet "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" director J.J. Abrams appreciates the addition of the gratuitous lens flare in the first panel. Note that in addition to the re-coloring, which completely and anachronistically distorts the original art, the first panel has been partially redrawn and the text box removed. It's not exactly Greedo getting off a shot, but still.

I thought Lucas stepping away from the saga was supposed to put an end to these needless revisions. Guess not.

Culture Shock 09.04.14: Every duck has his day

After 1986's "Howard the Duck," the film's titular star was about the last character anyone expected to see return to the big screen. "Howard the Duck" was the flop that launched 1,000 turkey puns.

Yet there he was: Howard the Duck, still trapped in a world he never made.

If, like me, you tortured your bladder and stuck around through the end credits of "Guardians of the Galaxy," you were rewarded with a brief cameo appearance by Marvel Comics' most oddball character this side of Fin Fang Foom.

In the '86 movie, Howard was portrayed by actor Ed Gale wearing an unconvincing duck costume, plus seven other actors credited with providing Howard's voice (Chip Zien) and otherwise bringing the anthropomorphized fowl to some semblance of life. In "Guardians" Howard is a far more realistic CGI creation voiced by an uncredited Seth Green ("Family Guy"), who coincidentally voiced Rocket Raccoon in the "Avengers Assemble" animated series.

It was just a few seconds of screen time, but Howard the Duck can now lay claim to appearing in the year's No. 1 movie. Heading into the Labor Day weekend, "Guardians of the Galaxy" had grossed $274.6 million in North America, moving it ahead of "Captain America: The Winter Solder" and "The Lego Movie." OK, all that green has a lot more to do with the talking raccoon and the dancing tree than it does the wisecracking waterfowl, but still. For Howard, it's quite a comeback.

Before Jar Jar Binks, "Howard the Duck" was pretty much universally regarded as George Lucas' greatest failure. And Lucas just produced the movie. It wasn't as if he'd written and directed it.

Even today, the '86 "Howard the Duck" film is more Lucas' albatross than Marvel's.

At a showing of "Guardians of the Galaxy," I overheard someone speculate that Howard's post-credit cameo had come about because Disney owns both Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm. He didn't know Howard is a Marvel character, although one who has appeared only sporadically since his comic book's original 31-issue run from 1976 to 1979.

Howard was created by the late Steve Gerber, who brought the counterculture sensibilities of underground comics into the Marvel mainstream, and artist Val Mayerik. But it was the late Gene Colan who drew most of the "Howard the Duck" series, and he was the perfect complement to Gerber.

Gerber's stories were satirical with a tendency toward absurdism. But Colan kept Howard grounded with gritty, street-level illustrations. No matter how weird Howard's adventures were, you never forgot he was just a poor, schlubby duck out of water who happened to fall into a world run by "hairless apes." Even worse, he'd landed in Cleveland, and he wasn't getting out any time soon.

"Howard the Duck" was, briefly, something of a breakout hit for Marvel, which tried Howard out in a newspaper strip that ran 16 months and promoted him with a fake 1976 presidential campaign.

Unfortunately, Howard's hard luck extended from the printed page to the real world. Disney didn't like that Howard somewhat resembled Donald Duck, forcing Marvel to tweak Howard's design, including putting pants on him. Now Disney owns Howard, but he still wears pants.

Worse still, Gerber and Marvel clashed over creative control, which led to Marvel kicking Gerber off the book. That was the beginning of Howard's slide into obscurity, broken temporarily only by the Lucas movie, from which Howard is still recovering.

Marvel already has a full slate of films on its schedule, and no one thinks Howard is getting one of his own again anytime soon. Still, Marvel has made the 1976-79 "Howard the Duck" series available again as digital comics, on sale through ComiXology and Marvel.com.

Most tellingly, Howard the Duck merchandise is starting to crop up again, spurred by the demand Howard's "Guardians" appearance has generated. First a bobblehead, and then the sky is the limit.

"Guardians" director James Gunn says Howard's cameo is just a bit of fun. It doesn't portend anything. But with the world as screwy as it has ever been, maybe it's time for the duck to again have his day.

Culture Shock 08.07.14: 'Guardians' builds a world but doesn't do much with it

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is a fun if frivolous ride, but unless you're steeped in Marvel Comics lore, it doesn't leave much to ponder after the lights come up. After the more character-driven stories of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Iron Man 3" and Fox's "X-Men: Days of Future Past," "Guardians" seems like a step backward.

If nothing else, it shows Marvel Studios was wise to build up to "The Avengers" rather than to throw the entire team at us at once.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" tosses us into the deep end without a life preserver. It quickly assembles its quintet of mismatched heroes and launches them on a mission that involves run-ins with some of Marvel's most out-there characters. In a way, "Guardians" feels a lot like "Iron Man 2." It's tasked with building the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's too busy with that to tell much of a story. At least with "Iron Man 2," "Iron Man" had already laid a foundation.

In "Guardians" we get just hints of each character's back story, but everyone's back story sounds more interesting than the story we're watching.

"Iron Man 2" also had the virtuoso performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Rockwell to fall back on. The standout performances of "Guardians of the Galaxy" belong to a raccoon and a tree.

The CGI duo of Rocket and Groot (voiced by Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively) steal the show, along with the occasional piece of alien technology. Rocket is a genetically engineered raccoon, which makes him an ill-tempered freak even in a galaxy full of ill-tempered freaks. Groot is a walking, talking plant whose utterances all translate into English as "I am Groot," which is sure to be the catchphrase of the year. Together, Rocket and Groot are a Han Solo/Chewbacca double act.

There's more than a little "Star Wars" in the movie's DNA, but "Guardians" mostly takes after its grandparents, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

Our window into Marvel's larger universe is Star-Lord. But everyone calls him Peter Quill (Chris Pratt of "Parks & Recreation" making a surprisingly successful transition to action hero). Peter is an Earthling who grew up in space. Abducted by aliens when he was still a child, Peter has the pop-culture sensibilities of the 1980s. And thanks to a mix tape his mom gave him before she died, he has the musical sensibilities of the 1970s. Like Buck, he's out of time. Like Flash, he's out of place.

Quill eventually forms an uneasy alliance with Rocket, Groot and two revenge-minded killers, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista). Their task is to keep a mysterious and powerful orb from falling into the hands of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).

Not for the first time, a Marvel film is let down by its villain. Ronan is a one-note genocidal maniac, and we're clearly just marking time until the power behind him (Thanos, played by an uncredited Josh Brolin) makes his move — probably in "The Avengers 3."

Somehow, Ronan the Accuser manages to be even more boring than Malekith the Accursed was in "Thor: The Dark World." I know Marvel is raking in the money anyway, but if I may offer some free advice: Stay away from villains with names like Someone the Somethinger.

If "Guardians" skimps on the story and character development, it at least succeeds in opening up the Marvel Universe for future adventures, and director James Gunn, who got his start in Lloyd Kaufman's infamous Troma film studio, is a good tour guide. "Guardians" zips along at a breezy pace, introducing us along the way to major Marvel players such as the Nova Corps, the Kree, the Celestials and, most memorably, the Collector (Benicio Del Toro).

The Guardians' journey to meet the Collector is breathtaking — a voyage that looks like we've fallen into an issue of Omni magazine. This is quite a world Gunn and Marvel have built.

The good news is Gunn is already signed to write and direct the sequel. So, having built this world, he can show us what he can do with it. But for now, I'm still waiting to see.

Culture Shock 05.29.14: 'Days of Future Past' gives X-Men a second chance

Given the obstacles it must overcome, that "X-Men: Days of Future Past" works at all is a pleasant surprise. That it's one of the best superhero movies to date qualifies as a minor miracle.

The X-Men franchise is one of the few Marvel Comics properties still outside Marvel and Disney's carefully constructed Marvel Cinematic Universe. That has its pluses and minuses.

The X-Men work better when kept at a distance from Marvel's other superheroes, who get in the way of the mutant vs. human dynamic that's central to the premise. That said, Fox's track record with Marvel's mutants is mixed. Only "X2: X-Men United" and "X-Men: First Class" are in the same league as Marvel's in-house productions.

But with Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men outings, returning to the helm, "Days of Future Past" not only hangs with the best of them — "The Avengers," "Iron Man" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" — in many ways it raises the bar.

Singer and Fox have a message for Joss Whedon and Marvel/Disney: "Game on, bub."

Adapted from a 1981 story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne ("Uncanny X-Men" Vol. 1, Nos. 141-142), "Days of Future Past" opens in the near future, where a war between humans and mutants has laid waste to everything and left most of the mutant population dead or imprisoned in concentration camps. The only mutants still roaming free are a handful of X-Men and their former enemy Magneto (Ian McKellen). They're just steps ahead of the Sentinels, an army of robots that can adapt to combat any mutant, no matter his or her abilities.

With no other options left to them, Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto hatch a plan to save the future by changing the past. That means sending someone back in time to prevent the act that ultimately leads to mutantkind's annihilation.

There's some explanatory handwaving, but eventually they send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973, where he wakes up in his younger body with a mission to find the younger Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), whom we met in "First Class."

Only together can they stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), a weapons designer who believes mutants herald humanity's extinction.

Trask's answer to the "mutant problem" is the Sentinels. But ironically, it's his assassination that leads the government to fund the Sentinel program, which it had previously passed on.

Mystique's solution is actually the problem it's meant to solve.

Wolverine's mission has just two complications. First, the young Xavier, deep in a depression following the events of "First Class," has given up on his dream of mutants and humans living together in peace. Second, Magneto is imprisoned beneath the world's most secure building. And even if Wolverine can bring them together, they hate and distrust one another.

Even with all that story to deal with, Singer delivers plenty of well-staged action.

Singer wisely dispenses with the "First Class" supporting cast, keeping only Nicholas Hoult's Beast, to focus on the main characters and what they do with their second chance. Even franchise mainstay Storm (Halle Berry) gets only a few lines, although she does finally get to show off her powers.

Storm kicking butt minus Berry's wooden line readings equals a win-win for the audience.

That leaves room for a few new additions, of whom Quicksilver (Evan Peters) is the undisputed scene stealer. No spoilers, but Quicksilver's big scene, improbably set to Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle," will have you smiling.

As much as "Days of Future Past" is about second chances for the characters, it's a second chance for Singer, too. He walked away from the third X-Men film to direct 2006's "Superman Returns," a misguided effort that led to Warner Bros. starting over last year with "Man of Steel." In his absence, Brett Ratner directed 2006's wretched "X-Men: The Last Stand."

With "Days of Future Past," Singer sets the X-Men right in more ways than one.

Culture Shock 04.10.14: 'Captain America' pits patriotism vs. the government

Since he defrosted 50 years ago in "The Avengers" Vol. 1, No. 4, Captain America has been at odds with his government almost as often as he's been on its payroll.

The world of Vietnam and Watergate into which Steve Rogers awoke is nowhere near as black and white as the world of Hitler and Tojo he left behind. In a 1974 "Captain America" storyline, Rogers becomes so disillusioned he abandons his Captain America alter ego, taking on a new costume and a new name: Nomad. He becomes a patriot without a country.

His Nomad persona was short-lived, but not so the idea behind it. Ever since, Captain America, the iconic symbol of freedom and patriotism, has drawn a bright line between serving America's ideals and serving its government. That's the Captain America we get in the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." And it's one of the franchise's best.

Picking up where "The Avengers" left off, Captain America (Chris Evans) is still working for the global spy agency SHIELD and still catching up on everything he missed since going into deep freeze in 1945. (He still hasn't crossed "Star Wars" off his to-do list.)

Cap's latest mission teams him with an elite SHIELD strike force and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to rescue a ship hijacked by pirates. From the start things aren't all they seem. The ship isn't just any ship. It's crewed by SHIELD personnel on a classified mission, and Rogers is already getting tired of cleaning up SHIELD's little accidents.

Back at headquarters, Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) decides it's time to bring Cap in on the big secret. SHIELD is about to launch Project Insight. Three specially designed SHIELD helicarriers will stay airborne at all times, identifying and eliminating threats before they happen.

Project Insight is preemptive war meets the National Security Agency, and Rogers is far from convinced. "This isn't freedom," he says in a trailer-worthy summation. "This is fear."

Like the underrated "Iron Man 3," this is a superhero movie with more going on than the surface pyrotechnics. This is the comic book equivalent of a post-Watergate thriller. It's no coincidence that Fury's immediate superior in the SHIELD hierarchy is played by Robert Redford ("Three Days of the Condor," "All the President's Men"). Redford brings more than gravitas; he brings a direct link to 1970s paranoia. But like they say, are you paranoid if they're really out to get you?

When an attempt is made on Fury's life, all signs point to an inside job. SHIELD has been compromised, and Cap isn't sure he can trust anyone. Even the Black Widow, who helped Cap save the world during the Battle of New York, isn't above suspicion.

The only person to whom Cap can turn is a fellow Army vet, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and even Sam has a secret, although one that's not a secret to readers of the "Captain America" comic.

All the while, threats from Cap's past keep cropping up, from Hydra, the formerly Nazi-backed super-science cult, to mad scientist Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) to the mysterious assassin known only as the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).

While that may seem like too much for one movie, directors Anthony and Joe Russo skillfully juggle all the balls screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely throw at them. And they still find time to stage some of the best action sequences in any of the Marvel films to date.

In her third supporting outing as the Black Widow, Johansson proves it's past time the Widow got her own movie. And Mackie is instantly likable in his sidekick role. But it's Evans who must and does carry the film, giving Cap a humanity other iconic characters often lack. (I'm thinking of Henry Cavill's Superman in "Man of Steel," who always seems to be faking it.)

By the time "The Winter Soldier" reaches its climax, Captain America stands ready to reveal everyone's dirty secrets. He has become Marvel's Edward Snowden, which is only appropriate, given Snowden has become the real world's Nomad.

Culture Shock 01.09.14: With great power comes great irresponsibility

Spider-Man's defining moment isn't one of heroism. Rather it's when he fails to do the right thing.

In an online discussion last week about remakes that miss the point of the original, io9.com's Charlie Jane Anders singled out 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man" starring Andrew Garfield. Anders wrote, "Amazing Spider-Man was pretty great, but lost the whole 'Spidey tries to make money off his powers' element of the (Sam) Raimi film and the original comics."

Without that element, "The Amazing Spider-Man" resorts to giving Spider-Man the Batman motivation: the not-so-accidental deaths of his parents. That misses the point even more than Anders lets on. It's Spider-Man's moral failing and his reaction to it that make him who he is.

In the origin story Stan Lee and Steve Ditko crafted, Peter Parker, recently bitten by a radioactive spider, uses his new powers the way most of us would. He uses them to make money.

As he leaves a TV studio with his earnings in hand, he refuses to stop a robber, although he could have done so easily. What business is it of his, anyway?

Then his Uncle Ben is killed, and Peter dons his Spider-Man costume to track down the killer, who turns out to be the robber he failed to apprehend when he had the chance.

That's the moment he learns his lesson: "With great power comes great responsibility." He stops trying to profit from his powers and instead uses them to protect the weak and innocent. That's what makes Spider-Man the hero he is. He's brave and selfless — and a sap.

Yes, a sap. Because he has learned the wrong lesson. Sure it's great that he has learned not to be a self-centered jerk, and it's great that he helps people, even at great risk to his own life and limb. But none of that should stop him from making a few bucks off his abilities, too.

It's not as if he doesn't need the money, and he does have responsibilities he can't fulfill with a punch and a wisecrack. Not a month goes by that he couldn't use some money to pay for his elderly Aunt May's rent or medicine. With a sickly parental figure comes everyday responsibilities.

But no. Peter Parker gives up profiting from his powers because he thinks that is what got Uncle Ben killed, when really it was just being a jerk.

That this is Spider-Man's origin story is ironic given that Ditko was one of his co-creators.

It was during his run as Spider-Man's artist and co-plotter that Ditko became a devotee of Ayn Rand's philosophy, which she dubbed "Objectivism."

Objectivism promotes the virtue of selfishness, in the sense of enlightened self interest. It doesn't rule out helping others, but it certainly doesn't put it at the top of its ethical hierarchy. In her novel "Atlas Shrugged," Rand even has a character explain the virtue of making money.

Money isn't everything in Objectivism. Ditko would go on to pass up more lucrative opportunities in comics in exchange for the freedom to make the comics he wanted to make. But money isn't evil, either. If Ditko were a more subtle storyteller — and I don't think anyone has ever accused him of that — I might think he deliberately intended Spider-Man as a bad example.

Spider-Man is always selfless, and what does that get him? A sick aunt, overdue bills, a dead-end job, a rogues gallery of villains who exist just to kill him and a tabloid newspaper publisher bent on making him New York City's public enemy No. 1.

Maybe if he weren't so selfless, his life wouldn't suck so much. In Ditko's world, Spider-Man is a tragic hero, sacrificing himself for no good reason.

Yet as it happens, Peter does make a little money off being Spider-Man. He takes photos of himself in costume and sells them to The Daily Bugle, passing them off as news. So, when Spider-Man does profit from his powers, he does so under false pretenses and makes the least amount of money possible. How ethical is that?

Maybe the real lesson is with great power comes great stupidity.

Culture Shock 11.14.13: Marvel looks to revolutionize storytelling

Marvel Comics didn't invent serialized storytelling, but it may have perfected it.

During the publisher's formative years, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and the rest of the Marvel "bullpen" created a unified world, in which characters from one comic book might pop up in another, if only for a cameo, with little or no fanfare. Just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man dropping by to say hello.

While DC Comics' superheroes inhabited a unified world, too, theirs was neither as cohesive nor as seemingly effortless as Marvel's. (It still isn't.) DC was selling individual characters: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Marvel was selling the Mighty Marvel Universe, and Marvel's readership eagerly embraced the label "Marvel zombies."

With Lee's carnival-barker routine in overdrive, 1960s Marvel became a hip brand.

Fifty years later, the comics publisher turned Disney-owned entertainment juggernaut looks to revolutionize serialized storytelling in ways that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

When Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury appears following the end credits of 2008's "Iron Man" and tells Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, "You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet," it's aimed more at us than at the character onscreen. Fury is telling the audience there is much more to come, beyond the obligatory "Iron Man" sequels. Sure enough, when we next see Stark, it's at the end of "The Incredible Hulk."

When "Iron Man 2" rolled around, Marvel's grand plan was in full swing. There were visual nods to Captain America and the Hulk, and the post-credits scene segued supporting character Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) into the next big Marvel movie, "Thor."

After "The Avengers," "Iron Man 3" and, most recently, "Thor: The Dark World," going to the movies is more than just going to the movies. It's like watching television. Each film is appointment viewing, as each is merely an "episode" in a larger, ongoing superhero soap opera. And you can count on an average of two new episodes a year, one in the spring and another in the fall.

For the first time, the movies are like Marvel Comics. Yes, you can follow just one character, but if you do that, you'll miss out on the larger story. "Iron Man" (and "Iron Man 2" and "Iron Man 3") is, like Fury said, "part of a bigger universe." And that universe is getting bigger, by which I don't mean just next year's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Guardians of the Galaxy."

Agent Coulson now headlines the television series "Agents of SHIELD," which, despite a steady decline in viewership, has secured a full-season order and seems finally to be getting a narrative footing. Apart from expanding the Marvel mythology, episodes so far have dealt with the aftermath of the Battle of New York (as seen in "The Avengers") and the "extremis" bio-weapon first seen in "Iron Man 3." This week's episode is a direct tie-in to "Thor: The Dark World."

Last week, Marvel announced a deal with Netflix that, starting in 2015, will bring four 13-episode series plus a "miniseries event" to the video streaming service. Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and superhero private eye Jessica Jones will each fly solo before teaming up as "The Defenders."

Disney clearly likes what it sees in the Marvel approach. When Disney purchased the "Star Wars" franchise, company execs promised not only a new "Star Wars" trilogy starting in 2015, but also "standalone" films taking place outside the main saga.

In this environment, DC and its corporate parent, Warner Bros., can't sit idle. They hope to spin-off a Flash TV series from The CW's "Arrow," and the "Man of Steel" sequel, also set for 2015, may feature Wonder Woman and other heroes as well as Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman.

By 2015, movie theaters could be home to three sprawling fictional universes, each as involved and time-demanding as an entire season of your favorite TV show is now.

Welcome to the brave new world of serialized storytelling.

Culture Shock 08.01.13: Jackman makes 'The Wolverine' his own

Hugh Jackman wasn't the first choice to play Wolverine. Nor was James Mangold ("3:10 to Yuma") the first director attached to "The Wolverine." All films are as much the result of chance as design. But in the case of "The Wolverine" it shows.

Dougray Scott was the first pick to portray the scrappy mutant in 2000's "X-Men," but he dropped out when production on "Mission: Impossible II" fell behind. Now, it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone other than Jackman in the role. Like Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark and Christopher Reeve's Kal-El, Jackman's Logan is definitive, even if he isn't a carbon copy of the comic-book character.

By contrast, Mangold and screenwriters Mark Bomback and Scott Frank never put a distinctive mark on the film, which is loosely based on Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's four-issue "Wolverine" miniseries published in 1982. (Not that Claremont and Miller get screen credit for their contribution.)

That is a shame, because there are seeds sown here that, with a bit of tending, could have born fruit.

"The Wolverine" picks up immediately after the events of "X-Men: The Last Stand," in which Logan was forced to kill the love of his life, Jean Grey, after she lost control of her powers, went all Dark Phoenix on everyone, and threatened to destroy the world. Heartbroken, depressed and blaming himself for Jean's death, which is strictly true, Logan has retreated to the isolation of the wilderness.

But even playing hermit can't keep Wolverine completely off the radar. He is tracked down by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mutant who can foretell people's deaths. She persuades Logan to fly back with her to Japan, where her employer, an old acquaintance of Logan's, wants to settle a longstanding debt.

During World War II, the ageless Logan was a prisoner of war in Nagasaki the day the atomic bomb fell, and he saved the life of a soldier named Yashida. Now on his high-tech deathbed, a billionaire industrialist Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) wants to give Logan a gift no one else can: mortality.

With the help of some superscience, Yashida will get Logan's super-healing powers, while Logan will get to live a normal life, growing old and eventually dying, ending the "curse" of immortality.

Yet Wolverine's existential crisis doesn't last long before taking a backseat to the Yashida family's internal power struggles, which are far less compelling.

When the Yakuza attempt to assassinate Yashida's granddaughter and designated successor, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), Wolverine is forced back into the "best there is at what he does" role he has tried to escape since Jean's death. Wolverine, the "ronin" or masterless samurai, is back in protector mode.

Only this time, Wolverine's healing powers aren't working, which makes fighting an army of criminals, and later ninjas, a lot more difficult.

What follows is the movie's best action set piece, with Logan and Mariko fighting their way across Tokyo. Afterward, it's all downhill en route to an overblown ending that looks like it wandered in from some other movie. When we finally learn the villain's master plan, the most striking revelation is that nothing we've just seen makes a lick of sense.

Still, Jackman makes it almost worthwhile. He is an engaging presence, and while he doesn't have much chemistry with either of his love interests, Mariko or Jean (Famke Janssen, appearing in several dream sequences), his role-reversed relationship with Yukio is fun while it lasts. If "The Wolverine" is about anything, it's about Logan as seen through the eyes of the women in his life.

How might "The Wolverine" have been different had director Darren Aronofsky not dropped out? Maybe its themes of life, death and immortality, which Aronofsky explored so well in "The Fountain" (also starring Jackman), would have been better examined? But we'll never know.

That's chance, and life, for you.

Culture Shock 05.09.13: New director builds a better Iron Man

Like its two predecessors and "The Avengers" before it, "Iron Man 3" is as much a comedy as an action movie. As before, it's fueled by the affable, wisecracking presence of Robert Downey Jr., again making the now 50-year-old comic book character Tony Stark his own.

Don't believe me? Open the latest "Invincible Iron Man" comic book and you'll see the character now more closely resembles Downey than the Stark of old. The movies have become the real Marvel Universe, while the comics have become a kind of fan fiction, except the writers get paid.

Joining Downey this time is writer/director Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon," "Monster Squad"), who has inherited the franchise from "Iron Man" and "Iron Man 2" director Jon Favreau, although Favreau still gets screen time as Stark's chauffeur/head of security Happy Hogan.

No stranger to the action-comedy formula, Black handles the alternating punches and punchlines so deftly you barely notice that it's all just a high-octane feint for his real agenda: a critique of the war on terror.

After the somewhat disappointing "Iron Man 2," which had to do too much heavy lifting to set up the Marvel movies that followed, "Iron Man 3" gets us back on track, with a more personal story that puts a new spin on Stark's "I am Iron Man" confession at the end of the first film.

Following the world-changing events of "The Avengers," the formerly confident Stark is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He's finally in a committed relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), but he doesn't know how to protect her from the threats he knows are out there. So, he retreats to the security of his workshop and his armor.

He's only forced out of hiding when Happy is critically injured in an attack apparently staged by the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), the mysterious terrorist hinted at in the first film.

The Mandarin is behind a bombing campaign that has American intelligence agencies baffled. What they don't know is the apparent suicide bombers aren't detonating bombs, they are bombs — living bombs caused by an experiment gone wrong.

That experiment is extremis, a biotechnology created by Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), who sought Tony's help with it — unsuccessfully — years before. Now extremis is in the hands of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), another scientist Tony brushed off back in his playboy days.

What extremis is supposed to do is regenerate lost limbs, making it a godsend for veterans who have returned from the war on terror missing arms and legs. What Killian wants it to do is create super soldiers. And when its recipients literally go off, well, that's where the Mandarin comes in.

Under all of this is the subtext: an indictment both of the war on terror, as being largely a fiction exploited by military contractors, and the government's treatment of injured veterans. It's a coincidence that "Iron Man 3" opens as the Veterans Administration's case backlog reaches critical mass.

Between the Mandarin's living bombs and Stark's PTSD, this is a movie about wounded warriors.

Also back from "Iron Man 2" is Don Cheadle as Tony's best friend and government liaison Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes, whose Stark-designed War Machine armor has been given a red, white and blue makeover and rebranded the Iron Patriot.

For Tony and Rhodey it's a joke. War Machine is a much cooler name. But as far as the subtext is concerned, it's a more honest name. The "war machine" is what everyone in "Iron Man 3" has been put through.

The Tony Stark we all know and love is still here, and "Iron Man 3" is up there with "Iron Man" and Joss Whedon's "The Avengers" as the most entertaining Marvel films. But Black has done something surprising. He's given the Marvel movie universe depth. Now it's Whedon's turn to answer.

Culture Shock 01.03.13: The making of a modern Marvel

In 2009, Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment for roughly $4 billion. In 2012, the top grossing movie in North America was Marvel's "The Avengers," which took in more than $1.5 billion worldwide. Marvel is an entertainment giant, and its characters — Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man and the rest — are modern myths, as well as valuable intellectual properties.

That's a long way from where Marvel Comics began, with a magazine publisher looking to cash in on the latest gimmick, a frustrated novelist who happened to be related to the publisher's wife and a team of eccentric freelancers, two of whom would prove indispensable.

I've been reading Marvel Comics for as long as I can recall. But Sean Howe's recent book "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" (HarperCollins, $26.00, hardcover) lives up to its subtitle. It tells stories about the so-called House of Ideas even I didn't know.

The publisher, Martin Goodman, pinched pennies, demanded layoffs and shamelessly followed trends until the fateful day his editor-in-chief decided he had nothing to lose by trying something new. That frustrated editor/writer was Stan Lee, who at 90 years old is still the face of Marvel, making cameo appearances in most of the company's films. The freelancers, especially Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, co-created most of the Marvel characters Disney paid $4 billion to possess. Then they both fell out with Lee and the company they helped build. Kirby subsequently spent years trying to get back his original artwork from Marvel.

Ditko, a recluse who prefers to let his work speak for itself, expresses himself today mostly through increasingly didactic, philosophical comics inspired by Ayn Rand.

They are figures as large as their creations, but their story is well known. What came before and after Marvel's Camelot period of 1961 to 1970 is less well publicized, but no less dramatic.

Last year, Disney purchased the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas, bringing Star Wars and Marvel under the same corporate umbrella. But the two franchises already had history. In 1977, Marvel's sales were in free fall, Howe writes, when Lee's successor, Roy Thomas, went after the "Star Wars" license. That decision's payoff helped keep the company going until its next big hit.

That hit was "Uncanny X-Men," which came into its own under the guidance of writer Chris Claremont and writer/artist John Byrne.

Through the '70s and '80s and into the '90s, Marvel was home to many talented artists and even more volatile personalities, even if they weren't as flamboyant as Lee and his bullpen of the '60s. Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter's regime set the stage for the industry's next two, transformative decades. The "Secret Wars" miniseries he scripted ushered in mega-crossovers, sprawling tales that invaded every other comic the company published and required readers to buy them all or risk missing out on a sense-shattering conclusion that would change everything.

Never lost in Howe's tale, however, are the bit players: the writers, artists and editors who met the deadlines and kept Marvel going in good times and bad, often sacrificing their health and better pay to stay in the medium they loved. Those cast aside included Don Heck, who drew most of the early "Iron Man" comics. Older artists lost work to hotshot youngsters like Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane, who later left to start Image Comics. Company loyalty goes both ways.

From there, it's a story of corporate raiders, bankruptcy, restructuring and revival. And some of the players are still with Marvel today, as the company settles into its role as intellectual property resource for Disney, while still publishing comics in an environment where paper is giving way to digital.

The form itself, sadly, is as disposable as so many of the people who created it. But its story, as Howe tells it, is as gripping as any of Lee and Kirby's cosmic epics.

Culture Shock 05.10.12: 'The Avengers' is assembled with care

Fair or not, the comparisons to Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" are inevitable, especially with his forthcoming sequel "The Dark Knight Rises" waiting in the (bat) wings.

But while Nolan tried to pry Batman free from the genre conventions of superheroics by placing him in a more-or-less realistic setting — not always successfully — Joss Whedon has turned "The Avengers" into the ultimate superhero film, one that embraces its conventions with unapologetic glee.

While "The Dark Knight" is a great film, and obviously a showcase for the late Heath Ledger, it's not necessarily a great Batman film. But "The Avengers" is a great superhero film — one that reminds us why the superhero genre has been so resilient.

Whedon's accomplishment is even more impressive given the logistics involved, taking the pieces of a superhero universe established across five previous films — "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" — and forging a seamless whole.

The result is much like the Marvel comics on which "The Avengers" is based. It's a fully realized superhero world, where it makes perfect sense for a demigod out of Norse mythology to interact with a man in an American flag costume and an egotistical billionaire with an invincible suit of armor.

The story begins with Thor's power-hungry brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who has been cast out of Asgard, forming an alliance with a mysterious alien race to take over the Earth. But to do so, he needs an Asgardian relic called the Tesseract, which can open a portal through which the alien army can invade. The Tesseract, however, was lost centuries earlier, eventually falling into the hands of the Red Skull during World War II before being lost again and recovered by Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). Now it belongs to the global security/spy agency SHIELD, led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), which has its own plans for it.

But before SHIELD's plans are complete, Loki steals the Tesseract, forcing Fury to call on an unlikely group of heroes to save the day, if they ever stop fighting amongst themselves.

Apart from Iron Man, there's Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), alter ego of the Hulk; Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans); the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner); and Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

It's a lot for Whedon to juggle, but almost everyone gets a chance to shine. (Sorry, Hawkeye. Better luck in the sequel.) As usual, Downey's Stark owns every scene he's in, and Ruffalo brings both a warmth and a simmering intensity to Banner. But the real surprise here is Johansson, who gets the meatiest part and makes the most of it, from her hilarious first scene to her emotional showdowns with Loki and the Hulk. Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," is known for his strong, butt-kicking heroines, and he delivers again here, while also peppering the script with the snappy dialogue that's become his other calling card.

"The Avengers" also features yet another indispensable supporting performance from Clark Gregg as SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, who has been a fan favorite since he first appeared in "Iron Man." For this outing, Whedon casts him in the part of the Everyman, who is more than a little starstruck when confronted with his childhood hero, Captain America.

It's Coulson who sums up why movies like "The Avengers," with their old-fashioned battles between good and evil, are still important. When Steve Rogers wonders if his star-spangled Captain America costume isn't too old fashioned, it's Coulson who says the world sometimes needs a little old fashioned.

Maybe now is one of those times.

'We're not a team. We're a time bomb'

Your inner fanboy will hulk out.

Avengers assemble.

5.4.12

Culture Shock 12.29.11: Not everything was annoying in 2011

Once again, it's time to say goodbye and good riddance to another year.

As far as years go, 2011 isn't winning any awards, but at least it isn't the end of the world. For that, we have to wait until next December, or so I'm told by people who don't really understand how calendars work.

On Dec. 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar "runs out." This uneventful event is apparently regarded as cosmically significant by people who don't realize that our own Gregorian calendar runs out every Dec. 31 — at which point it cycles back to the beginning, as it has since it was introduced in 1582, replacing the Julian calendar, which ran out with virtually identical frequency, give or take a few doomsdays.

At this point, however, if the world did end, I'd be hard pressed to say we didn't have it coming.

When I look back at 2011 and see that one of the cultural high points was the return of "Beavis and Butt-Head" to MTV, I know the pickings are pretty slim.

Still, in keeping with the spirit of the season, here are a few things that did not annoy me in 2011:

The sixth season of "Doctor Who" was the best since the show's revival in 2005, and Matt Smith firmly established himself as my favorite Doctor since Tom Baker's tenure in the 1970s.

"House" is never going to be as good as the first three seasons were, but at least the current Cuddy-free season is an improvement over last year's. Nothing against departed co-star Lisa Edelstein, but after the writers decided to have House and Cuddy get together — and then break up — her leaving was the only thing that could save the show. It has been more than 20 years since Dave and Maddie's kiss of death on "Moonlighting," yet TV writers still tempt fate.

C'est la vie.

At the movies, the best of the best was Werner Herzog's 3-D documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," which I reviewed a few weeks ago.

For superhero movies, it was a down year, with "X-Men: First Class" the best of the bunch, despite glaring flaws like January Jones' non-performance. I have higher hopes in 2012 for "The Avengers," but I'm worried about "The Dark Knight Rises," which seems dangerously close to taking the whole "taking Batman seriously" thing way too seriously.

Apart from "The Avengers," the two films I'm most anticipating are both prequels: Ridley Scott's "Alien" prequel "Prometheus," and Peter Jackson's return to Middle Earth with "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," featuring Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. (If you're honest, you'll admit "The Hobbit" is a much better story than the bloated "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.) Speaking of Martin Freeman, he and Benedict Cumberbatch return next year for a second season of "Sherlock," the BBC's modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes, from the creative team of Mark Gatiss ("League of Gentlemen") and Steven Moffat ("Doctor Who").

The best books I read in 2011 were mostly nonfiction: "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human" by V.S. Ramachandran and "Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark," Brian Kellow's biography of the still-influential New Yorker movie critic whose style the rest of us all lamely try to imitate.

I'll have to take an incomplete on Haruki Murakami's newly translated novel "1Q84," which I've just started and is approximately the length of the Tokyo phone directory.

And lastly, on the music front, a word of advice: If you have a chance to see thepau Alabama Shakes perform live, take it. This little band, originally from Athens — as am I, so I confess a slight bias — is probably about to hit it big, and deservedly so.

For the Shakes, 2011 wasn't a bad year at all. But 2012 will be even better.

Culture Shock 09.03.09: Meet Spider-Man's new boss: Mickey Mouse

I awakened Monday morning to a great disturbance, as if millions of fanboys cried out in terror and were suddenly making their displeasure known on a thousand Internet message boards.

That's when I went online and saw the news: Disney had purchased Marvel Entertainment, the parent company of Marvel Comics, for $4 billion.

No, it's not a dream, and it's not an imaginary story. The company that gave the world Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men is, pending the obligatory paperwork, now a part of Uncle Walt's multimedia empire. Doomsday has arrived, but Doctor Doom isn't responsible. Mickey Mouse is.

The nightmare scenarios are endless. Tony Stark retires and gives his armor to Mickey, who becomes the invincible Iron Mouse. Goofy turns out to be a mutant (I knew it!) and joins the X-Men. Donald Duck and Howard the Duck are revealed to be long-lost brothers. Hannah Montana develops super powers and becomes an Avenger. And Wolverine takes singing lessons and joins the cast of "X-Men Origins: High School Musical."

Sure, you laugh, but remember that Hugh Jackman got his start singing in a stage production of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." That's synergy, and no corporation on Earth can resist synergy.

Actually, the Disney/Marvel merger probably won't be as bad as all that. But it's too soon to tell how it will actually play out. Disney's other acquisitions, however, have had somewhat mixed results.

When The Walt Disney Co. purchased Pixar Animation Studios in 2006, Disney gave Pixar Chief Executive Officer John Lasseter the keys to the Magic Kingdom. Now Lasseter doesn't just run Pixar, he runs Disney's in-house animation unit, too, and helps design Disney's theme park attractions.

Pixar had the advantage of having produced, at the time, four of Disney's most successful animated films, including "Toy Story." That gave Pixar the upper hand in negotiations.

Disney has also had a good run with its prestige film unit, Miramax. But the road here has, at times, been a little bumpy. After several high-profile disputes with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Miramax founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein left to form The Weinstein Co., taking with them Miramax's Dimension Films label. Dimension primarily produces horror and action films.

Quentin Tarantino, whose previous films were all Miramax releases, followed the Weinsteins, and The Weinstein Co. released his latest hit, "Inglourious Basterds."

Still, even without Bob and Harvey, Miramax has continued to produce award-winning films, including "There Will Be Blood" and "Doubt."

Disney's experience with the Muppets, however, has been far less successful. Disney purchased the Muppets from The Jim Henson Co. in 2004, but so far Disney hasn't figured out what to do with Kermit the Frog and friends. But to be fair, no one has really known what to do with the Muppets since Jim Henson died in 1990.

The upsides for both Disney and Marvel are obvious. As Marvel's existing licensing agreements expire, Disney will gain access to Marvel's characters for everything from movies and video games to toys and theme-park attractions. Marvel, meanwhile, gets greater exposure and easier access to funding for its in-house movie productions.

Another bonus for Marvel is that Disney's current CEO, Bob Iger, is not the micromanager Eisner was.

And that increases the likelihood that Marvel will enjoy something more akin to Pixar's semi-autonomy than Miramax's public feuds. Hopefully, Iger knows that with great power comes great responsibility.

But for better or worse, Marvel Comics has come a long way from its anarchic early days, when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and the rest toiled in the publisher's famous bullpen.

‘Hulk’ do-over gives the fans what they want

The fanboys got what they wanted. So did Marvel Studios, the Hollywood-based corporate sibling of Marvel Comics.

The fanboys wanted a Hulk movie that was non-stop action, with none of the pesky psychological drama and fancy editing of Ang Lee’s “Hulk” getting in the way. If there’s one thing they’ve made clear during the past five years, it’s that they didn’t appreciate Lee’s attempt to do something artistically ambitious with Marvel’s Grumpy Green Giant.

I’ll say this: There’s nothing remotely psychological about Marvel’s do-over, “The Incredible Hulk.” In terms of plot, this movie is about as thick as the Hulk’s skull. But that doesn’t prevent it from being a decent enough summer action movie. It just doesn’t aspire to be anything other than a decent summer action movie.

Marvel Studios, meanwhile, wanted a second hit to carry forward the momentum its first in-house production, “Iron Man,” generated last month. And Marvel’s studio executives must be pleased with a $55 million, No. 1 opening.

But let’s put things into a bit of perspective. Lee’s unfairly maligned 2003 version also opened at No. 1 and grossed about $8 million more during its opening weekend than the new model did. The only thing director Louis Leterrier’s 2008 edition has going for it is the lack of a fanboy backlash, which should soften the second-weekend drop-off that doomed Lee’s film at the box office.

If “The Incredible Hulk” has the legs that Lee’s adjectiveless “Hulk” lacked, Marvel’s plan for a multi-character franchise will be in good shape. If not, Marvel Studios may be holding its breath until 2010, when “Iron Man 2” and “Thor” are set to open.

Honestly, there is a lot to like about “The Incredible Hulk,” and if I seem overly hostile to it, it’s because my own inner fanboy is also a bit of an art-movie snob, and I still haven’t gotten over the drubbing comic-book fans gave “Hulk.” To me, the Hulk’s alter ego, Bruce Banner, is the more interesting character of the two, and Lee’s movie grasps that. The Hulk is Banner’s abused inner child throwing a tantrum — a literal “monster of the Id,” to quote the 1950s sci-fi film “Forbidden Planet.”

As played by Edward Norton, however, Banner isn’t particularly tortured. He just has an unusual medical problem. There is no real reason for his alter ego to be so angry, apart from constantly having to fend off an Army unit led by Gen. Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt).

Ross wants to capture the Hulk and find out what makes him tick, so that he can use it to create super soldiers. As an added complication, Ross is also the father of Banner’s estranged love interest, Dr. Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).

Drawing more from the “Incredible Hulk” TV show starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigo than from the comic books, the film shows Banner in hiding, taking menial jobs and searching for a cure for his condition. That is, until Ross and Capt. Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) track him down. Then it veers off into virtually nonstop action scenes: Banner vs. commandos, Hulk vs. commandos, Hulk vs. the Army and, finally, Hulk vs. Blonsky, who uses a cocktail of super-soldier serum and Banner’s blood to turn into the equally hulking Abomination.

All of those combinations work well, except for the last one. Fight scenes should amount to more than two CGI cartoon characters pounding each other.

But “The Incredible Hulk” makes even my jaded inner fanboy smile by placing itself firmly in the larger Marvel Universe. Scattered throughout, if you know where to look, are references to other Marvel characters like Captain America and Nick Fury. The film also cleverly sets up the villain for the sequel.

Best of all, however, is Robert Downey Jr.’s uncredited cameo as Tony Stark — aka Iron Man.
Still, when the best thing about a movie is the actor who reminds you of a better movie, maybe there’s a problem.

Iron Man to power Marvel movies through 2011

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

And just like that, Marvel Enterprises said, “Yes, you may have another.”
With “Iron Man” raking in more than $200 million worldwide last weekend, Marvel announced Monday that its next in-house film production will be “Iron Man 2,” set for release April 30, 2010.

The near two-year break between “Iron Man 2” and Marvel’s next self-financed movie, “The Incredible Hulk,” which opens June 13, is the result of the recent screenwriters strike. But Fox will release “Wolverine,” starring Hugh Jackman, next year under its pre-existing deal with Marvel.

“Iron Man” vindicates Marvel’s new strategy of producing movies in-house and using the major movie studios — in this case, Paramount — just for distribution. The big Hollywood studios have managed to produce huge hits based on Marvel’s most popular characters, Spider-Man (Sony) and the X-Men (Fox). But they’ve stumbled with many of the company’s lesser-known characters: Daredevil, Elektra, the Punisher and, most recently, Ghost Rider.

Now, Iron Man has been my favorite superhero since I was 5 years old. But he was hardly a household name, at least until last week. Still, Marvel was able to turn the character’s big-screen debut into 2008’s first blockbuster. It will probably finish as one of the year’s top-five grossing films. And in a year with highly anticipated Indiana Jones and Batman sequels, that’s no small feat.

Give Marvel credit for taking chances the big studios might not take, like casting Robert Downey Jr. as the film’s lead. The 43-year-old actor, who has found his greatest success in small films and supporting roles, isn’t the sort of actor most Hollywood executives would cast as the star of a big-budget action flick.

But Downey makes billionaire industrialist Tony Stark the most watchable superhero since — well, since ever. It’s the sort of performance that critics will be comparing to Johnny Depp’s turn as Capt. Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.

“Iron Man” moves along at a supersonic clip, and gives its cast a chance to shine as much as the special effects. Now that is how you make a superhero movie.

Fans will argue about whether “Iron Man” is the best comic book/superhero movie yet made. I think it is, and the film’s 94 percent “fresh” rating at RottenTomatoes.com backs me up. But I don’t think there is any arguing that it’s the most fun superhero movie so far.

In or out of his high-tech armor, Stark handles his demons like an adult. There’s no Spider-Man angst or Batman brooding anywhere in sight. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the occasional brooding Bat.) And that makes for an enjoyable romp. Not like Peter “Spider-Man” Parker fretting about how he’s going to pay for his Aunt May’s cataract surgery and other such soap-opera dreariness.

If you stay through the closing credits of “Iron Man,” you’ll get a teaser for what Marvel Entertainment has planned for the future. But in case you can’t hold your bladder in check that long, Marvel has announced its other projects for 2010 and 2011.

After “Iron Man 2,” “Thor” hits theaters June 4, 2010. Then in 2011, expect a Captain America movie (working title, “The First Avenger: Captain America”) on May 6, followed by what could be the superhero movie to beat all superhero movies, “The Avengers,” in July.

Like the comic book, “The Avengers” promises to team-up Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Captain America to face some menace none of them can tackle alone.

So, if “The Avengers” can lock in Downey as Iron Man, “Incredible Hulk” star Edward Norton and whoever stars in “Thor” and “Captain America,” it’ll be the most star-studded comic book movie ever.