I used to be a comic book junkie, madly obsessed with the hellacious goings on with the Marvel Universe. I’ve found other things to occupy my time and my money since those days of obsessively hunting down the first appearances of Venom but I still get excited at Hollywood’s attempts at reinterpreting the Marvel Comics cannon, no matter how bad it may be.
We’ll leave aside the recant forays into documenting Spiderman, the X-Men and Fantastic Four. While perhaps not the Lawrence of Arabia of the comic reinterpretations, they have done the cannon justice with just the right mount of cheese and tight spandex.
Iron Man 2 looks to better the first one and it’s hard not to get excited about it. Sequels don’t normally better the original (see Spiderman), but Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow and Mickey Rourke as Whiplash have my inner geek unbelievably excited. Add Robert Downey Jr as the new alcoholic and kinda emo Tony Stark and it’s a cant miss proposition.
Thor looks to debut in 2011 with Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins bringing the kind of gravitas and artistic temperament to a comic book that you’d never expect. Well, at least Hopkins. Captain America‘s also going to be hitting the silver screen around the same time.
The connection between all these films though, is a comic junkies dream. The lurking presence of Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D head Nick Fury is a sign that although not confirmed, the mother of all comic-book adaptations is likely going to happen. If you thought the X-men packed a wallop, I can only wait to see what Hollywood does with the glory and the wonder that is the Avengers!