Marvel Movies All Over The Place

Wow there's a bunch of stuff coming in the next 5 years - Civil War! Black Panther! Infinity Gauntlet! Details are here if you haven't seen them yet.

I'm just amazed. As a kid we were stuck with those terrible 70's TV shows I mentioned before that made the 50's Superman and 60's Batman look extra good. Now some of my favorite comic book characters from way back then are showing up in big budget movies with good actors and decent scripts and showing a lot of loyalty to the original stories that started them all ... could it be any better? It's not just Marvel either - DC is putting together a slate of movies that look "lesser" to me only in comparison to Marvel's efforts. A sequel to The Incredibles from Pixar is just icing on the cake.

I suspect there's a confluence here of a) people who grew up reading them achieving success or positions of power in Hollywood, b) other people who grew up reading them and watching cartoons being older now, introducing their own kids to the universe, and being willing to pay for movies about them, and c) special effects finally reaching a point where they look more than good - look at that gif above -  they look real!

I think of this "era" of superhero movies as starting in 2000 with the first X-Men movie and it has only gotten stronger. It may get a solid 20 year run. Is this the new "American" genre like westerns were from the 30's to the 70's? I think it could be. I also think at some point it will end, or at least decline to a much lower level, just as they did, but I suspect we are nowhere near that yet. Whether we're still in the early years, the peak, or the decline of this genre/movement/"thing" I can;t really say. What I can say is that the inner 6 year old in me, and the inner 13 year old in me, couldn't be happier with the way this is all going.