We finally watched the 2 hour and 46 minute eulogy to Chadwick Boseman this past weekend. Wakanda Forever is a great tribute to the late superstar, if an uneven Marvel movie experience. It was bound to be impossible to strike a balance.
Corrie mentioned that it sometimes felt like it should have been a Disney+ show, what with all the storylines trying to reach some kind of satisfactory conclusion and Shuri finally donning the suit just before the two-hour point. [[Side note:
At one point I definitely said: "Okoye, Shuri as the Panther, N'kia, and Riri in her suit? I'm 100% all-in! Give THEM their. own movie!" And at a different point I said: "WTF? Namor's beef is with land-locked Wakanda? CAN'T YOU SEE YOU'RE DOING WHITEY A FAVOR?"
Explaining to Corrie about Namor got me thinking of another pre-war comic-book rando with pointy ears and a vaguely-foreign look that got a MEGA movie just recently:
Black Adam got the Dwayne Johnson treatment, which is good for him. The DC movie peeps trying to do some justice for the power of the Shazam character(s) and their history and move Teth Adam into a position as Superman's peer seems to have failed. But I enjoyed parts of the movie, for sure. Other parts, like them not letting Dwayne Johnson (who I do enjoy) do "Dwayne Johnson", was a mistake. It had tone issues and didn't seem fun enough. Also, the Justice Society lives in a world without Team America? Did the producers learn nothing from that satirical puppet classic?
Namor, the Sub-Mariner, is Marvel's oldest continuously used character that hasn't gone through any changes and dates back to the time before they were known as Marvel Comics. Timely Comics's first big hit was titled "Marvel Comics," and the first issue had the Human Torch (an android unconnected to the Fantastic Four character) and Namor, the Sub-Mariner, the prince of an undersea kingdom who vows to crush the world of the white man because of the damage done by them to his realm. (That first issue had about eight other stories that didn't achieve the same lasting power.) But that was in June of 1939, when Batman was a month old and Superman a year.
People liked that Namor jacked the surface world up. It was a different type of comic character. He was a villain, but he was righteous and usually had Justice with the capital J on his side. Timely ended up focusing on the Human Torch and Namor, as you can see in their first cover share together above, as a dynamic contrast---water and fire. Incidentally, the creator took the name by writing things he considered regal, but in reverse order. 'Roman' as 'Namor' had the easiest going sound, and that's what he went with.
Anyway, if you'd told 13 year old Pat that effing Black Adam AND Namor, the effing-Sub-Mariner, would've been headlining MAJOR Hollywood blockbusters? The SAME year?
It would have been the same if you'd told me that the following rando Gotham side-vigilante character:
...would have been a major part of a popular television franchise AND a major Hollywood production...
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| Arrow and Birds of Prey |
...I just...I just don't think I could have been convinced.
Anyway, as much as I like comics, I'm looking forward to originality making a return to the cinema.
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