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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 3 years

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Now that the initial shock has worn off--mostly--I feel like I can ramble about the Supergirl comic news in a more coherent fashion.

Under a cut because there’s a good chance it’ll be long. XD

So yeah! Tom King, writing Supergirl. Wild!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been jokingly entertaining the notion that King’s teased ‘Super’ project would actually be a Supergirl thing, but I always assumed that if it was, in fact, a Supergirl thing, it would be in the vein of Mister Miracle or Strange Adventures--a prestige, out-of-continuity take, possibly featuring an older Kara, from pre-crisis continuity. Maybe interrogating the whole, ‘her most famous story features her death’ thing.

I never expected mainline, in-continuity, teenage Kara from him.

As I said, wild!

Wild, because King is like. A HUGE name in comics, and his wheelhouse is primarily Sad Dads. He’s also known for making really controversial, polarizing decisions WRT characterization of fan-favorite characters. (See: Wally in HiC, Batman in Batman, etc.)

So, like. I get that immediate ‘What?! Oh no!’

...But also...

He’s written Superman: Up in the Sky, which, barring one particular issue, is an extremely good Superman story.

(The whole premise of Up in the Sky is that Superman leaves earth to rescue an orphan girl who’s been kidnapped by aliens. The issue that’s a bit ‘yikes’ features Clark trying to reach Lois from deep space, and he can’t, so he’s imagining that something terrible has happened to her. That, I feel, is a perfectly fine, in-character reaction, and an idea worth exploring. HOWEVER, in execution, it ends up being Lois dying in several different, awful ways on-panel, which...yeah. Kinda Yikes! I can’t remember if it was terribly graphic but, still. I don’t think it needed to be seen, you know?)

So aside from that misstep? A really good Superman story.

(On the topic of King and Lois, I frequently cite his story in Action Comics 1000 as an example of a writer just being like, ‘screw it, Lois is alive 4 billion years in the future, and still with Clark.’ So I give him props for that.)

Back to Up in the Sky--King’s referenced that in describing Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, so. That’s mostly a positive!

The ‘Tom King’ thing also starts to make more sense once you look at like, the money/sales side of things. I’ve already seen a bunch of tweets from people who are like, ‘I’ve never read a Supergirl comic before but I’m gonna get this because you’re writing it!’

Yeah. I see you, DC. I see you. XD

We’ll probably never know the behind the scenes stuff, but I gotta wonder if this wasn’t so much DC choosing King as King wanting to do this, and DC letting him.

Another valid criticism/concern I’ve seen mentioned: Another dude writing Supergirl!

Which...yeah! Kinda crummy! Would be nice to see a woman write Supergirl for more than, you know. Three issues.

(Side note, though: personally I do not ascribe to the ‘only men can write men, women write women’ thing. That’s kind of a separate topic, but I mention it here because I don’t automatically assume that a book will be better/worse based on the gender of the person writing/drawing/etc.)

(For instance! Bennett just churned out one of the worst Supergirl comics I’ve ever read so...it’s equality! Anyone can write an awful Supergirl story!)

Speaking of Bennett...

The solicit text...kinda sounds like Future State 2.0, which...

Is not promising.

It’s really weird, IMO, that DC is like...letting such similar premises happen back-to-back?

A lot of DC books are incorporating stuff from Future State but this isn’t so much, ‘teasing out plot threads’ as like. Just doing it over again. XD

I mean. Worst thing that can happen is we get another ‘dead in the backyard with the dog.’

(I’m intensely curious about the DC editorial situation, like. Which pitch came first? Was the Future State Superwoman book always going to happen, what with FS being built from the ruins of 5G or whatever? Did King come up with his stuff at the same time FS was being developed? The world may never know...)

Given that this is King’s next big thing...kinda hoping we get some press coverage and interviews. I wanna get a better sense of like...where he’s coming from.

Also, it means absolutely nothing re: the book, but I appreciate that King used a gif from the show to respond to some well-wishes on twitter. Specifically, the ‘thumbs up’ gif from one of the season blooper reels. Good choice, sir.

Okay, enough about King. Let’s talk about the ONE SUREFIRE THING ON THIS BOOK.

BILQUIS. EVELY.

Wait, I take that back. TWO SUREFIRE THINGS:

BILQUIS EVELY, AND MAT LOPES!!!!!

Gosh this book is gonna be so pretty.

Like, just look at this:

Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking: that looks stunning. BUT WAIT!

BOOM. LOOKIT THOSE COLORRRSSSSS!

Guh, it looks so GOOOOOOD. And it’s just the cover.

(I'm ignoring the sword because I need more info before jumping to conclusions, but as some sharp-eyed folks have noticed, that *might* be a red sun which*might* mean a de-powered Kara, in which case the sword could be used in self-defense. Also, give me a Super wielding a sword over a gun any dang day.)

Evely drew an AMAZING Silver Age Kara back in Sugar & Spike and had a pretty stellar run on Wonder Woman.

Fun fact I just learned from a few interviews she shared recently! Supergirl is the character that got her into superhero comics, and when Giffen was writing Sugar & Spike, he asked if there were any characters she wanted to draw specifically. She said Supergirl, so Giffen made sure she showed up in one of the issues. :D

Also from those interviews: She’s excited about the book, and enjoys working with King. It was harder to figure out the art talk in said interviews (I was using Google translate) but I think...she was saying that there’s some specific influences that folks will pick up on when the book comes out?

Also, when asked to tease anything about the book she just said Mat Lopes colors and stars.

WOOOOO, pretty space backgrounds, yay!

It cannot be overstated, how pretty this book is going to be.

Evely’s a little similar to Sauvage in that they both have like...an almost fairytale quality? To some of their work?

(Evely just did a Batman: Black and White story that was quite literally a fairytale.)

But Evely, I think, has a little more range, particularly in the area of expression/acting.

And Lopes knows how to make her work shine.

Who knows about the writing though. XD On the one hand, the bar for bad Supergirl comics is so incredibly low, but also.

...Future State.

*shudders*

TL;DR: I refuse to let myself get excited for the story side of this because you could make an IHOP-size omelet, with all the egg on my face from my Future State hopes, but if nothing else: EVELY. DRAWING. SUPER. GIRL. *wild muppet flailing*

#DC comics #DC comics news #SG post #stranger rambles #long post #ish #Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

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aion-rsa · 2 years

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Morbius: Inside the Next Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Movie

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“If you’re going to run, do it now…” In the depths of a South American rainforest, an unusually frail-looking Jared Leto stands at the towering mouth of a sinister-looking cave, propped up by two walking sticks, his long, stringy hair draped over a green overcoat that swallows his frame. A small group of mercenaries look on nervously, edging back towards the helicopter behind them. He takes a large knife and draws it across his palm, before holding his hand up towards the hi-tech cage positioned in front of him. Something is stirring from within the darkness. But there’s a problem…

“The blood didn’t come out,” Leto says, looking off to the side. “Wanna go again?”

On any other production, that little practical-FX slip-up might have been ripe for the post-release blooper reel. But while Leto briefly breaks character to acknowledge the error, there’s no corpsing here – he remains focused, shuffling around on his crutches while the unit quickly sets up for another take. The second run-out is more successful; this time, the knife opens up a big, bloody, creature-baiting gash.

As you might have guessed, this isn’t actually a South American rainforest. Den of Geek is currently on a soundstage at the old Fountain Studios in Wembley, North London – although the set design is so impressive, it feels like it could be the real thing (giant, 360-degree greenscreen notwithstanding). Crew members with water-tank backpacks spray mist over the rocky terrain and fake flora in between set-ups, maintaining the tropical illusion.

The bloodless blunder we’ve just witnessed is funny, given that the movie currently being shot boasts the working title Plasma and has a plot that revolves around the red stuff… This is Morbius, the Covid-delayed third chapter in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (after 2018’s Venom and its sequel, Let There Be Carnage), starring Leto as the eponymous antihero. Leto’s Michael Morbius is a genius physician suffering from a rare blood disease, whose search for a cure leads him to self-experimentation – turning him into a “living vampire” with supernatural abilities and a thirst for human blood.

“The cave sequence that we’re shooting today is the one that opens the film,” explains producer Lucas Foster, as he shows us concept art and models that reveal the vast scale of the scene – much of which will be filled in with CGI during post-production. “Inside the cave are hundreds of thousands of a particular kind of bat, which Morbius is looking to collect and bring back to his lab. It’s a really cool sequence.”

Morbius may be a high-concept comic book adaptation, but that doesn’t mean Leto is taking it any less seriously than his more grounded roles. He is famed for taking the immersive “Method” approach when it comes to embodying characters, and Morbius is no exception (hence why Den of Geek has been invited only to “observe” his work). This is the final week of principal photography and yet, when we ask Leto’s co-star Adria Arjona about what he’s like to work with, she responds: “I’ve never met Jared… I’ve only met Michael Morbius.”

Arjona is playing Martine Bancroft, a fellow scientist who has a “symbiotic” relationship with Morbius. “It was a challenge for me [at first] because it made me adapt to this new form of working,” she continues. “But it has been really special.”

The film’s director, Daniel Espinosa, agrees. “It was truly astounding to see the amount of work he puts in to physically transform to become this character,” he says. “It’s something I haven’t really seen before, this Method approach. It’s like when he’s using the crutches – sometimes it takes him a long time to come to the set…” He laughs. “But it’s been great.”

Blood lines

You can see why Leto was attracted to the role–Morbius is a character with a lot of complexities to mine. Created by writer Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Morbius first appeared as an enemy of Spider-Man in 1971, and later featured in his own comic series–developing into more of a brooding, tragically flawed antihero. Following in the great traditions of Spidey villains such as The Lizard, Morbius’ actions might not always be agreeable, but there is an understandable method to his madness.

“As the movie begins, he’s close to death,” explains Foster. “And so he gets increasingly desperate to figure out a solution. But as an expert in medicine, he’s right at the edge of that ethical boundary.”

And what of his vampiric bloodlust? “It’s a challenge for a guy who’s a doctor, someone who’s sworn to defend human life,” he says. “He resists it. In the comics, he comes to prey upon the guilty. But this is an origin story; we’re starting with the birth of the character, before he’s made that decision. We watch him wrestle with this dilemma.”

For Scandinavian filmmaker Espinosa (Safe House, Child 44)–a self-confessed Marvel super-fan who executive producer Louise Rosner reveals is the “second-biggest purchaser of comic books in Sweden”–the bad guys are often “more interesting” than the good guys.

“I’ve read almost everything that Marvel has published up until now, and I was always very close to this character,” the director explains of his personal connection to Morbius. “I liked the kind of the ’90s version, which spoke to me as a teenager in the postmodern era. You had the Berlin Wall coming down and you had this character who was like the Kurt Cobain of the Marvel Universe, who told people to fuck off, and I enjoyed that. So when this came to me, it was almost too good to be true.”

This might be Morbius’ film, but he isn’t the only fan-favorite character that Espinosa gets to develop on screen. There’s Martine, Morbius’ partner who, in the comics at least, has a complex arc of her own. “She’s pretty fierce,” says Arjona. “She’s strong and has her own will and has almost like a motherly quality to her, taking care of the people that she loves. And she’s extremely smart. She’s a head-to-head scientist with Morbius. He’s the genius behind this cure, but she’s striving to be just like him.”

The movie also introduces the Fast & Furious saga’s Tyrese Gibson as Simon Stroud–a special agent tasked with “pursuing superhero-type characters that have gone awry,” according to Foster–and Doctor Who’s Matt Smith as Loxias Crown, “kind of an amalgam of characters from the comics” and a childhood friend of Morbius’ who suffers from the same blood condition. “They have a complicated relationship,” says Foster, wary of giving away too many of the film’s secrets. “It gets more and more complicated as the movie goes on…”

Vamped up

Leto’s commitment to his characters often involves as much of a physical transformation as it does a mental one. To be truly convincing as Morbius, whose bat-cure gifts him superhuman speed and strength, the actor had to pack on some serious muscle.

“When he transitions, he’s super healthy,” explains Rosner. “Jared was working out like a fiend to get the bulk. And then for the scenes where he is shirtless, there’s a three- or four-day period where he really has to work at it. He goes on this incredibly difficult diet, where he can only drink distilled water and he has to eat so specifically at certain times. It becomes a whole other job for him, and that all has to be scheduled.”

Today’s sequence is actually an anomaly–most of Leto’s early, pre-vamp scenes were filmed first, so that he could maintain the bulk for his second- and third-act super-antics (the oversized waterproof coat he’s wearing today is no doubt helping to cover up his biceps). Morbius’ initial “sick look” is created through some clever make-up effects, while Rosner reveals that his frame will be altered via a “sort of shrinking effect” by VFX company Lola–the technical wizards who created a weedy-looking Chris Evans in Captain America: The First Avenger–to “make him look even more fragile.”

There’s one more transformation, though, that Marvel fans are most eager to see–that is, Morbius’ change into his monstrous vampiric form. Principal photography on the film might be nearing its end, but Leto will be going straight into weeks of motion capture work, with even more detailed facial capture taking place later, once a rough cut has been assembled.

“I went through the comic book history of the character,” says Espinosa, recalling the process of recreating Morbius’ iconic visage. “He has been reinvented quite radically in the different books, so I just picked the one that I like best and that I hope fans will. It was purely an emotional, instinctual decision. I hope it’s going to be a big thrill to watch the transformation.”

“We have a design that’s really great,” adds Rosner. “We’ve had a lot of concept artists working on it. You can’t be scared by this character, but you also have to be scared by him, so it’s finding that happy medium.”

While the filmmakers are keen to stress that Morbius is very much a PG-13 take on the character (“We’re not trying to make some deeply dark movie,” says Foster), there’s no getting away from the fact that Marvel’s bloodsucking antihero is inspired by a much-loved creature from horror lore. There’s also the fact that Espinosa previously directed sci-fi horror Life (which some consider an unofficial Venom prequel thanks to its gooey black space invaders) and champions Alien director Ridley Scott as “the master.”

“I always thought it would be interesting to do a superhero movie that had all the enjoyment and wish fulfilment that you want,” he says, “but I wanted to add that layer that comes from the movies that I’ve done before, which are a bit edgier.”

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Whatever the result, there will be blood–eventually…

Morbius opens on Jan. 28, 2022.

The post Morbius: Inside the Next Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Movie appeared first on Den of Geek.

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