By Sean Favager
“Well that costume looks shit I’m not going to see this…”
Hello and welcome back to the Comic Asylum. You’re a lucky bunch of mother truckers this week as we have penned a double edition of our blog for you all to feast your lovely eyes upon. As you have already noticed this is the second part of our double bill as @Pete_the_Red wrote up a preview of Iron Man 3 in #012, if you haven’t had a look go check that out. So enough about Pete let’s get back to me (it’s all about me…) and what I have in store for you with #013. The title maybe a bit misleading today because this isn’t about Star Wars or galaxy’s far, far away. This is all about planet earth and a few species that occupy it called Fan Boys! (Cue the DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN) Please do hold on to your hats because this isn’t a direct attack at everyone who likes comics or is interested in the Geek Kingdom. This is an attack at the certain type of Fan Boy that makes you sad to be a fan off whatever it is you’re interested in. The type of Fan Boy who may come out with sayings like this…
Or this one I recently found today on the world wide interweb…
“Making Shailene Woodley Hot Enough To Play MJ In TASM 2”
Yes boys and girls I have actually seen this as a header for a blog. The more I even look at that quote the more it just really annoys me. Since the infamous picture of Shailene popped up on the World Wide Web the fan boys came out in droves. I’m not going to type up any more quotes as you may have all seen the comments yourselves and I do not want to promote anymore of the trolls insults. But basically Shailene Woodley arrived on set for the ASM2 without makeup and low and behold the comments and hate began. I’m a huge Spider-Man fan as I type this up in my Man Cave I’m surrounded by a lot of Spidey memorabilia, be it canvas art, comic books and even my plush knee high black symbiote Spider-Man 3 doll. Yes that film did suck balls but mini Spidey looks badass. What I’m trying to say is even though I’m a Spidey fan I’ve never been a huge fan of the Mary Jane character I’ve always been a Gwen Stacey guy. So to me not having MJ in the ASM movie universe is fine to me but I understand why and what her roll is in Peter Parkers life story.
Now this is where I think a lot of people get confused and angry, let us take Batman for instance. How many Batman books are there to buy in your local comic book store or “right here at Inter-Comics.com” (Cheap Pop)? You do not have to answer that because I will right now, there are a lot. Now how many different artists and writers are there attached to all the different Batman books? Yet again I will answer this a lot. My point is every single writer and artist is different and every single one of them will tell you they want to bring something different to the table. It’s a well-documented fact you cannot please every single person in the world at one time. Some of you may like AquaMan for example and I don’t but I’m not going to come on here and write comments blasting him. I’m simply not going to go out and buy his comic. Back to what I was getting to anyway, just like the comic universe the movie universe is not so different. Every director, writer and actor want to bring something different to a character or a story, if they did not there would be no point at all even investing time let alone money into the project. My honest opinion is this business thrives and gets popular every single day is because anybody can take any character from the comic book world and add his own little touch to it. If you do not believe me just YouTube some of the amazing fan made videos.
Look how Bane was changed drastically from Comics to Nolan’s Bat universe.
I stated above that the movie universe is not so different to the comic universe and it is not yet there is one huge difference. The movies universe has to appeal to more than just the fan boy. For the studios to throw in millions of dollars of their money into a superhero franchise they are going to want to see a return from that. So the story and characters have to be adjusted so that a wider audience can be attracted. It’s a simple formula and it works. Look how Bane was changed drastically from Comics to Nolan’s Bat universe. Luchador mask changed for a gas mask, venom for pain killers and the Spanish accent for a posh English accent. It worked and even now people are still speaking about Bane and how amazing Tom Hardy was.
This is exactly what Marc Webb has done with the ASM he has gone back to the drawing board and used a lot of what Ultimate Spider-Man was from the comics. Compared to Raimi’s trilogy Webb brought us a younger Peter Parker and also a new suit which caused a bit of a stir on the internet. Yet again as is the case the fan boys moaning soon went away when the final product was brought to us on the silver screen. ASM was a fantastic movie and like Dredd it was a shame they were out in the same year we got Marvel’s Avengers & Christopher Nolan’s final Batman. As both were over looked especially Dredd (Which if you still haven’t seen do yourself a favour and go buy it). I have spoken to a lot of non comic book fans about ASM and their opinion is the same; they preferred ASM to Raimi’s trilogy. It is obvious that for a superhero franchise to be successful on the silver screen it has to appeal to the casual audience. Marc Webb did this with ASM so he must be given the credit to do what he has to do with ASM2 without the fan boy backlash. This means the casting of Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane.
Like I said before this is Peter Parker in his school years so he is portrayed as a teenager which also means Mary Jane will also be portrayed as a young adult also. So all this jumping to attack Shailene Woodley for not being attractive enough is insane and downright horrible. To judge someone on one photograph is just a horrible thing to do, if I could count the amount of times people have looked down at me because of my love of superheroes I would need more fingers and toes, and I’m pretty sure you all have too. You shouldn’t judge Shailene Woodley because of her looks (which if you are please Google image her she is really attractive) we should judge her on her ability to act. If you have seen the Descendants you will know she can just do that. Myself personally would rather actors play my favourite Superheroes then just a pretty face, if I wanted that I would just go out and watch Spider-Man XXX and leave happy tissues all over the place.
Shailene Woodley…like you’d say no to her….or more to the point she’d ever say yes to you!
I really think it’s time most fan boys just grow up. I know it is not everyone just a small few who bitch and moan about everything different, but you must understand as much as you love a particular character or story not everyone does, so small changes need to be made. Just look at Superman, it’s hard to place together a story about a superhero that good to a wide audience. Things have to be tampered with and changed and if done right (which is like 95% of the time with the new batch of comic book movies) it benefits the comics. I’ll bet money now that the next time Bane crops up in a Batman comic book the Luchador mask will have been replaced for the gas mask. Now I understand people will say “Well this is my opinion I’m allowed it” and yes you are just as I am mine. All I ask is just think about the hurtful remarks you make before posting up on a comment section. Just like yourselves these actors and actresses have feelings too and can you imagine if you had been chosen to play a role and stumble across a title of a blog post as idiotic as I pasted above. Let us just wait for ASM before judging a certain character or costume and just be greatfull studios, directors and actors are even taking the time to make our favourite characters and stories come alive on the big screen…
You can follow Sean on Twitter at @seanfav1 or catch him on the official Comic Asylum account @Comic_Asylum
Posted on March 12th, 2013
Category: NEWS & VIEWS, THE COMIC ASYLUM
Tags: Amazing Spider-Man 2, Comic Asylum, Comic Reviews, Gwen Stacey, Marc Webb, marvel comics, Mary Jane Watson, Pete Barrington, Sean Favager, Shailene Woodley
By Sean Favager
Hello and welcome back to the (at the moment in time weekly) Comic Asylum brought to you by the good folks at Inter-Comics and myself. It has been quite an eventful week since #002, yeah I ended up getting a free taxi home from the police Saturday night for being very drunk. Luckily for me I’m a nice drunk, waking up in the cells wouldn’t have been ideal but hey you learn from your mistakes. Mine is don’t go out drinking on an empty stomach, and don’t go out with your cash card, its always going to end with you being skint the next morning but I’m sure I’ll break them two rules again in the near future. On the plus side I found out my local cinema will be having a Dark Knight Trilogy day 29th of July so it would be highly rude if I didn’t show up. Its Batman season I have a right to turn into a nerd! Plus it’s like they are challenging me to do it so because I’m an idiot I’m going to treat it like a runner would treat a marathon.
What also caught my eye this week was a twit pic circulating the internet. I’m sure you have all seen it! We are about to get the return of everyone’s favourite clown prince of crime in Synder and Capullo’s Batman #13. Now I’m a Detective Comics boy but you can bet your life I’ll be jumping on that series after missing out on the Court of Owls. Now in-between the being a silly drunk and playing with myself over Batman I have been annoying the shit out of work colleagues with a new favourite quote. “Ma-Ma’s not the Law! I’m the Law!” Yeah I caught the Dredd trailer, not sure what to think just yet but if you haven’t seen it check it out and let’s hear what you think? Now I think I’ve cleared up my week in brief so let’s jump straight into #003 and what I thought of the Web-Heads latest assault on the box office in Marc Webb’s the Amazing Spider-Man.
The return of everyone's favourite clown prince of crime in Synder and Capullo's Batman #13
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My first thoughts going in to see Spider-Man was Jesus this pint is expensive! I’m just joking (EDITORS NOTE: he’s not joking, i actually saw his tweet and to quote him “£3.75 for a pint in the flicks robbing bastards!”) I’m detoxing, but seriously my first thought going in was do we really need a reboot this close to the last trilogy? We definitely needed something after the shite-fest that was Spider-Man 3 (just mentioning that film upsets me). There was rumours in 2010 that Toby was coming back for a fourth with the Vulture as the villain but that just evaporated and Mr Webb was employed to reboot the franchise. Although I hate 3, the first two films are brilliant from start to finish the second being my favourite. So when the reboot was announced I was really “meh Fox beating a dead donkey again”. But then they started casting and my interest picked up. I’m a huge fan of Emma Stone (not just for obvious reasons) and I was really impressed with Garfield in the Social Network. Then little snippets of the plot come out online and the trailers and viral videos and my interest increased dramatically. I understand the beef fan boys have with the Lizard that we have seen in the short footage but I don’t think Connors looks bad. It’s tough to please everyone, they tried with Spidey 3 and well we all know how that turned out. So here is what I thought of the 2012 film; The Amazing Spider-Man.
Who turned the channel over to Staying Alive...oh wait its Spider-Man 3
First we are introduced to a more confident Peter Parker then we saw in his last outings on the big screen. Yeah he is still a geek but you have the feeling you can connect a lot more to Andrew’s, Peter Parker then you ever could to Toby’s. I connected with this character so much I found myself really rooting for Spider-Man and I have never done that in a film before. To anyone else you know the good guy always wins and gets the girl but for a second you actually doubt Peter Parker in this film. Garfield actually shows you Parker’s flaws as the 17 year old science nerd whose parents and uncle died and he has these abilities thrown at him. He actually makes you want to revisit Spider-Man 1 and slap Toby Maguire for being such a cry baby bitch. In this film it digs a bit deeper into Parker’s parents albeit not a lot, and this is where we are introduced to Dr Curt Connors. Rhys Ifans pretty much steals the show as the mad doctor trying to cure human weakness. Let me clear something up for those who have bitched and cried about how the Lizard looks like a Goomba, go drink a can of red bull and jump off a bridge. The Lizard looked awesome! He was a well-cast villain against the teenage superhero still getting to grips with life and the paths he must choose.
Rhys Ifans pretty much steals the show as the mad doctor trying to cure human weakness.
In a film like this the hero needs a love interest (step up Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacey). I’m not a huge fan of the romance story lines but this one was brilliant. It helped that she has the looks and she CAN actually act. Another stand out in this film was Captain Stacey the man making it his mission to capture our favourite Web-Head. You probably have guessed I haven’t found a flaw in this movie nor will I go looking for one. The feeling I got leaving the cinema was that which matched my feeling after walking out after the Dark Knight. Simply speechless at what I just saw. What I and @Pete_the_Red did discuss after a 5 minute silence was if ever 3D was invented for our eyes to feast upon it was for one man and one man only, Peter Parker. I was never a fan of 3D becoming mainstream but I don’t see any other way this film can be viewed. To literally hang on to the edge of your seat as Spider-Man swings through New York is such an amazing feeling. Plus this might be Stan Lee’s best cameo and will never be beaten.
So I’m giving this film a full 5 out of 5 and all I can say is by God Nolan you have some topping to do. I want to finish this by leaving you with a quote from @Pete_the_Red that had me laughing all the way home. Until next week folks be good and go F+*@#!? see The Amazing Spider-Man.
@Pete_the_Red “At least Toby Maguire has Sea Biscuit to be proud off!”
You can follow Sean on twitter at @seanfav1
Posted on July 5th, 2012
Category: REVIEWS, THE COMIC ASYLUM
Tags: amazing spider-man, Andrew Garfield, Comic Asylum, Emma Stone, Lizard, Marc Webb, marvel comics, Movie review, Rhys Ifans, Sean Favager, Stan Lee
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