My big takeaway thoughts from the hype coming out of last weekend's San Diego Comic Con

Green Lantern and Thor do not, at first glance, have too terribly much in common, other than both being marquee comic book superheroes who have carried their own titles on and off (mostly on) for about five decades apiece. But they are two names that get dropped by me here in the blog quite a bit (although, to be fair, sometimes when I namecheck the Odinson I am referring to his mythological antecedent directly, not the Marvel incarnation of the character per se). They are, I should hope I have demonstrated, personal faves.


They are also both getting feature-length movies which will be released in the summer of 2011. The timing of this, as you might imagine, kind of blows my tiny mind. Growing up the Superman movies were pretty much where superheroes began and ended on the silver screen, and then Tim Burton gave America Bat-mania, but by then I was already in high school. Then the X-Men and Spider-Man finally got their own movies, another ten or twelve years later.

Now it’s become a pretty facile observation to say that there’s scarcely a comic book property left that hasn’t at least been considered for a screenplay treatment, from “unfilmable” classics (e.g. Watchmen) to indie darlings (e.g. Hellboy) to stuff I was vaguely aware of but nobody I know was necessarily a fan of but what the hell, it’ll look all right on the big screen (e.g. Kick-Ass).

But any true comic shop denizen can tell you that for every movie that hits the cineplexes, or even gets an entertainment press mention for casting rumors, there’s approximately sixty-seven thousand other potential title characters appearing in published comics who are waiting their turn and may very well wait forever. That, more than anything, is why the timing here is a bit mind-boggling for me. Had you asked me, say, five years ago if they would ever make a Green Lantern movie, or a Thor movie, I would have said something approximate to maybe-but-probably-not, because each of them is a lone mid-level-at-best character among thousands in their respective publisher’s stable of licensable properties. And if you had asked me if I thought movies based on either of them could possibly turn out well, I would have similarly equivocated, if only to protect my inner hopeful-fanboy from having his spirits crushed. And furthermore if you (strange establisher-of-premise-via-hypothetical-questions that you apparently are) had told me that both movies would get made, both would give me good reason to actually get excited about the prospect of seeing them in the theater, and both would be released not only in the same year, not only close together, but quite possibly on the same dang weekend, I would have laughed, because, come on, now you’re just talking crazy jibber-jabber.

So yeah, if you were wondering if I am going to totally freak out next June? Yep. Most likely I am.