By the chilling mists of Serpent Valley! Is there no end to how many super-hero movies we can take?
Seemingly not - because, hot on the heels of eighty five billion and one other comic book adaptations, we've now been blessed with a teaser trailer for Marvel's Black Panther.
Well, the last Marvel trailer I saw was the one for Thor: Ragnarok. Given that the Panther is noticeably more Earthbound than the thunder god, can this possibly hope to live up to that for thrills, chills and spills?
Here's were we find out...
Well, that was all every nice, wasn't it? It all looked suitably photogenic in the way you'd expect it to. Otherwise, it's hard to have an opinion really. As far as I can see, all we really learn from it is that the Black Panther is in it and Wakanda is in it. Call me psychic but I sort of took those two things for granted.
But what else is in it?
Is Killmonger in it?
Is Baron Macabre in it?
Is Monica Lynne in it?
Is that bloke who's in the chair, talking about Wakanda, Klaw before his transformation?
I have no idea.
All that apart, my main impression from watching the teaser is of a strange and annoying visual gloom. It has to depict the most underlit sequence of events I've seen since Aliens v Predator 2, a film that was so dark that we had to take their word for it that there were actually even any aliens and predators in it. I trust the entire movie won't be shot in such gloom and that the scenes where they remembered to turn the lights on simply failed to make it into the trailer.
Still, if the trailer doesn't really tell us anything, there's nothing in it that sets the alarm bells ringing. For instance, there's no sign of Jack Kirby's Black Musketeers or of King Solomon's Frog.
Then again, there's no sign of Hatch-22 or whatever he was called, who I would love to see show up in a Marvel movie.
But, good grief. I'm so stupid that I've only just realised that, "Hatch-22," is a pun on, "Catch-22."
Then again, it took me forty years to realise, "The Cod War," was a pun on, "The Cold War." How different the past seems when you suddenly realise these things.
And the Maggia was the maffia... that confuse my 10-year-old mine for years and years and years.
ReplyDeleteWhats wrong with the Black Musketeers and King Solomon's Frog, Steve? Kirby's short-lived Panther comic was the dog's bollocks.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the trailer though - it does seem pretty much as expected.
Its a fair bet the geezer in the chair is Klaw as he has an arm missing.
-sean
By "Hatch-22", I assume you're referring to the "Six Million Year Man."
ReplyDeleteI think that's what the cover blurb was anyway. I assume the name was inspired by Col. Steve Austin.
Yes, I would like to see him show up in the film too, with his giant purple head and disintegrator beams. He was a man of few words, as I recall.
He hailed from Earth's distant nightmarish future, like Agron, who, as far as I know, is currently inhabiting a metal tube of some kind thanks to Captain America and the Falcon. Did Agron and the Six Million Year Man know each other? And what happened to the latter? I don't have that issue. Is he in a tube?
M.P.
Charlie, it's proof positive that comics can torment a man's soul.
ReplyDeleteSean, you've opened my eyes to the glory of The Black Musketeers and King Solomon's Frog. I shall never bad mouth them ever again.
MP, I don't have a clue what happened to The Six Million Year Man/Hatch-22. I like to think he's still causing trouble for someone somewhere. Maybe he goes to monthly meetings of a club for Marvel characters with huge heads, like The Leader, The Watcher, Modok, Kurrgo and all the rest and they gather round with a tape measure to see whose head is biggest this month.
As long as they are making marvel comic films I am not allowed to die, interesting looking at the cast list at who the villain are.....
ReplyDeleteHello gentlemen, pardon my cultural ignorance! But if something is the dogs bollocks is that good or bad???
ReplyDeleteMP, as pure energy Agron was more highly evolved so from further into the future than the purple hatch-head geezer - you'll recall, of course, that the moon was close to the earth of six million years away, but had collided by the time Agron split for the twentieth century.
ReplyDeleteSo it seems reasonable to assume they didn't know each other.
But yeah, you'd think with all the goings on at SHIELD over the years Agron would have got out of that tube by now...
-sean
Charlie - www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dogs-bollocks.html
ReplyDeletePS That was me, Charlie.
ReplyDeleteI don't entirely understand why, but it sounds right somehow.
-sean
Ant Master, I've just looked at the cast list, on Wikipedia and, needless to say, I'm very pleased...
ReplyDeleteSean, I'm pretty sure there was once a Susie Dent (of Countdown ) video on YouTube that explained the origins of the phrase in question but it seems to have vanished.
Steve, don't get me started on the subject of Susie Dent (be still my beating heart)
ReplyDeleteHer discussion of bollocks, canine and otherwise, is at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=StxFdxTVjWI
-sean
Thanks, Sean. I'm finding that video suitably educational.
ReplyDeleteThe kipper's knickers was a new one to me, Steve.
ReplyDeleteSurprised that hasn't had much use in recent years, although it probably would have changed its meaning a bit after the recent election.
-sean