Tag: The Avengers

Robert Downey Jr. ambushed over politics: Reporters want Iron Man to be a liberal activist

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015by Douglas Ernst9 Comments

I said in 2013 that one of the reasons conservatives defended Robert Downey Jr. was because liberals attacked the man. Perhaps the best example was the 2011 hit piece from Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere (now flushed down the Memory Hole), in which an anonymous source said the actor’s values “are pure Republican values.” That came after an interview in The New York Times that drove liberals batty, but before the actor attended a fundraiser for President Obama. Apparently Robert Downey Jr’s ideological blasphemy is still stuck in the media’s craw because he was just ambushed during an interview with British reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

The Huffington Post reported Wednesday on the interview, which ended with Marvel Studio’s Iron Man walking out:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: I’d really like to ask you about a quote you gave to The New York Times. I don’t want to pry so if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but what you said to The New York Times was — it was about, it was after your incarceration and you said that you can’t go from a $2,000 a night hotel suite to a penitentiary and understand it and come out a liberal. I just wondered what you meant by that.”

Robert Downey Jr.: The funny thing is — and I appreciate your point of view — things you said 5-7 years ago or things you said in an interview that made sense to you at the time — I could pick that apart for two hours and I’d be no closer to the truth than I’d be giving you some half-assed answer right now. I couldn’t even really tell you what a liberal is, so therein lies the answer to your question.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: The statement sort of stands by itself, doesn’t it? Does that mean that you’re not a liberal? Or that you came out of a prison not being liberal?

Robert Downey Jr.: Are we promoting a movie? To me the thing is that it’s — I’m certainly not going to backpedal on anything I’ve said, but I wouldn’t say I’m a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat. I think when I was talking to the person who was doing the interview that day and that just happened to be my opinion. That’s the nice thing, you can have opinions and they change and flow.”

Robert Downey Jr. is in a horrible position. A guy who has been to prison probably realizes that hard-core criminals will never adopt the peace-love-dope worldview of liberal beat poetry readings and bongo-circles. Perhaps he’s a fiscal conservative who is socially liberal. Maybe he was against the war in Iraq but he understands that leaving radical Islamic head choppers the their own devices is a bad idea.

How does the man define himself politically, especially when he has to work with hard-core liberal activists like Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo? The best thing to do to keep the peace on set is probably to just stay silent and stick to playing Tony Stark really well — but that is not good enough for the media.

Robert Downey Jr. will always have to be on guard against a media ambush because he refuses to use his Twitter feed to lecture people on climate change. He doesn’t get into abortion politics. He doesn’t harangue people about minimum wage laws or demonize Republican politicians. This is unacceptable to pundits who want celebrities to push liberal politics on as many people as possible while they’re in the limelight.

The vast majority of Americans do not want Hollywood stars to lecture them on public policy. They appreciate that Robert Downey Jr. keeps his politics close to the vest. They are glad that he walked out on Krishnan Guru-Murthy and wish more actors would follow his example.

The moral of the story is this: The creative team behind “Avengers: Age of Ultron” could learn a thing or two from Robert Downey Jr. If Marvel’s talent wants independent, libertarian, and conservative fans to continue flocking to Marvel Studio movies, then they should knock it off with the political activism.

G. Willow Wilson’s A-Force: Will Marvel put ‘the boundaries of diversity’ before good writing?

February 6, 2015February 8, 2015by Douglas Ernst27 Comments

Marvel’s upcoming Secret Wars will bring about the end of The Avengers and start of an all-female group known as A-Force.

Marvel confirmed Feb. 6:

Marvel Comics is excited to announce the new group of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes taking over an all-new era with Marvel Comics’ A-FORCE co-written by G. Willow Wilson and Marguerite K. Bennett with artwork by Jorge Molina .

This May, beginning in Marvel’s Secret Wars, the Avengers are no more! …

“She-Hulk, Dazzler, Medusa, Nico Minoru and other fan favorites, will take charge,” says series co-writer G. Willow Wilson. “We’ve purposefully assembled a team composed of different characters from disparate parts of the Marvel U, with very different power sets, identities and ideologies.”

Given that the current crop of Marvel editors and writers tend to prioritize political correctness over sound storytelling, one has to wonder if A-Force will actually be a creative juggernaut or a forgettable mess loved only by feminists for what it aimed to do instead of what it actually accomplished. Series editor Daniel Ketch hints at the answer, and it is not good.

The Huffington Post reported Feb. 6:

“Marvel has always celebrated the diversity of its family of characters and creators,” series editor Daniel Ketch said. “This new series will unite Marvel’s mightiest heroines with the exceptionally creative minds of writers G. Willow Wilson and Marguerite Bennett to craft a story full of epic battles, personal triumphs, and heart-stopping peril … and an all-new character who will push the boundaries of diversity in comic books even further.”

If a character just so happens to break new ground, then that’s great. It is a completely different situation when the creative origin of a character is “How do I push the boundaries of diversity?” The probability that the project will turn into politically correct psychobabble increases exponentially with the latter scenario because a writer will usually compromise his or her character’s integrity at the alter of “diversity” before allowing said hero to enter uncomfortable places.

Regardless, Ms. Wilson assured fans on Friday that she wasn’t going to “create yet another amazon.”

Marvel fans who rolled their eyes at She-Thor hope Ms. Wilson and Mr. Ketch are telling the truth. If they are, then perhaps A-Force will be a comic worth reading. If they are not, then it will be another embarrassing stain on a company that employs men like Tom take-your-devil-dealing-OMD-“medicine”-and-shut-up Brevoort.

Exit question: Marvel’s Daniel Ketch says the company celebrates the “diversity … of its creators.” Really? How many openly conservative writers are employed at Marvel? Can he name one? Where is the Captain America book penned by a writer who shares Nicholas Irving’s worldview? Has there been one since September 11, 2001? I don’t believe so.

Marvel’s ideological diversity seems to include a very small spectrum of political thought, which begins and ends with people like Dan go to “Christ-Land” Slott.

Update: If you’re one of the people bashing me over at Bell of Lost Souls, then … thanks for reading! I find it strange that you have such animated opinions of me that you’re willing to share with your friends, but not in the comments section here…but to each his own. It is telling, however.

And for the record, my avatar isn’t Tyler Durden from “Fight Club”; it’s Mickey O’Neil from “Snatch.” It fits with my “bareknuckled commentary” tagline. Your insults aren’t as funny when you can’t even get those straight.

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ trailer begs the question: How can Joss Whedon not direct ‘Avengers 3’?

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014by Douglas Ernst8 Comments

By now the entire world has seen the teaser trailer for Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. There really is only one word to describe it: awesome. The first movie made over $1.5 billion worldwide. It seems fair to say that $2 billion this time around is a distinct possibility. However, if director Joss Whedon delivers the goods — and all signs point to ‘yes’ — then it begs the question: How can he walk away from a climatic Avengers 3?

Over the past few weeks it’s been rumored that Marvel wants Joe and Anthony Russo to sign on for the 3rd and 4th Avengers movies, but it feels as though everything is building to Avengers 3. Only Marvel knows if that is the case, but I can’t help but feel as though walking away before completing an Avengers trilogy would be a bizarre move on Mr. Whedon’s part.

Directing a movie on as big of a scale as The Avengers must be physically and mentally exhausting. The time away from family and the pressure it puts on the director must be unbearable. However, if Mr. Whedon has set the stage for the superhero movie of all superhero movies to be Avengers 3, then passing on the job would be like the quarterback who leads his team down the field at the end of the big game, only to walk off the field on the opponent’s 20-yard line.

Regardless, for those who were too dazzled by the visuals of the teaser trailer to pay attention to the narration, it appears as though Whedon is going Empire Strikes Back-dark with this installment.

Ultron: “I’m going to show you something beautiful — everyone … screaming for mercy. You want to protect the world, but you don’t want it to change. You’re all puppets tangled in strings. String. But now I’m free. There are no strings on me.”

Then there is this exchange between Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff:

Tony Stark: “It’s the end. The end of the path I started us on.”

Natasha Romanoff: “Nothing last forever.”

Meanwhile, an eerie rendition of “I’ve Got No Strings” from Disney’s Pinocchio plays in the background. (The merger between Marvel and Disney continues to pay off in interesting ways.)

It’s hard to see how Marvel can continue to keep this momentum going. The Black Widow is right: “Nothing lasts forever.” Eventually, Marvel will create a movie that implodes under its own weight. Eventually, all waves crash against the shore. Regardless, when that happens it will be hard not acknowledge that it was one wild ride.

Marvel turns Thor into She-Thor, fails at Jedi mind trick to convince fans otherwise

July 15, 2014July 17, 2014by Douglas Ernst183 Comments

The brilliant minds at Marvel Comics — the guys who thought it was a stroke of genius to turn Doctor “I just tried to kill six billion people” Octopus into Spider-Man for over a year — are back again, and this time they’re turning Thor into a woman. Only they’re insisting that they’re not creating a “She-Thor.”

The politically correct company once known for great comic books writes:

Who is she? Where did she come from and what is her connection to Asgard and the Marvel Universe?

“The inscription on Thor’s hammer reads ‘Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.’ Well it’s time to update that inscription,” says Marvel editor Wil Moss. “The new Thor continues Marvel’s proud tradition of strong female characters like Captain Marvel, Storm, Black Widow and more. And this new Thor isn’t a temporary female substitute – she’s now the one and only Thor, and she is worthy!”

Series writer Jason Aaron emphasizes, “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

These are not the Thors you’re looking Thor.

Sad. Pathetic. The most hilarious part are the fans saying, “But you haven’t read it yet!” — as if Marvel’s attempt to shoehorn politically correct mush down readers’ throats isn’t enough to warrant any kind of negative feedback.

Just as many fans would not have minded having Doctor Octopus swinging around New York City with spider-powers — provided Peter Parker wasn’t killed to make it happen — many fans are not opposed to a Norse goddess flying around earth — provided that the Thor they’ve always known and loved isn’t unnecessarily tinkered with to make that happen.

What’s next on Marvel’s list? Perhaps Bruce Banner has always been transgender. Maybe Reed Richards has always felt like a woman and he should start using his powers to mold his body in ways that better represent his (her?) true self. Where does it end? For the sake of “diversity” Marvel can come up with any hair-brained idea and then demonize its own fans who say, “Wow, that’s really dumb.”

If Marvel wants more strong female characters, then it should hire writers who can invent them. No one cares about that. Fans do care, however, when writers take a character who is a man and arbitrarily fill his role with a woman.

The problem Marvel has is that it wants diversity for the sake of diversity, but it’s not willing to do the hard work it takes to bring memorable characters into existence. It takes some serious brain power to come up with a break-out superhero that will capture the hearts and minds of generations of readers. There must be many misses with new characters before there is a hit. Marvel’s solution in this case: just make Thor a woman. Either it’s a temporary stunt or it is a real attempt at injecting a new strong female character into the Marvel Universe by using a cheap short cut. And if it is a stunt, why should Marvel get to hoist itself upon the moral pedestal of Gender Righteousness to begin with?

The odds of this idea working out as the new status quo are probably not very good, since Marvel is trying to head off the “She-Thor” label before it begins. Unfortunately, “She-Thor” is already here.

I’m looking forward to Marvel’s next attempt at creating a more gender-diverse field of superheros — Tony Stark will become “Toni” Stark because there aren’t enough female CEOs in the Marvel Universe.

The real story behind ‘The Hawkeye Initiative’: Liberals bashing liberals

December 4, 2012April 5, 2013by Douglas Ernst56 Comments

Not familiar with The Hawkeye Initiative? You should be, especially if you’re into comics. It’s a somewhat-amusing attempt by artists to replace “strong female character poses” with Hawkeye.

We’ve seen a lot of clever responses to the spine-twisting, butt-baring poses so many female comic book characters are subjected to, but the Hawkeye Initiative is particularly fun. Their mission: to take those particularly awful poses and replace the female characters with Hawkeye.

Why Hawkeye? It seems it all began when artist Blue decided to switch the poses and positions of Hawkeye and the Black Widow on one of their comic book covers. …

Then Blue and Noelle Stevenson (also known as Gingerhaze and creator of the fabulous webcomic Nimona threw a challenge out to Tumblr: fix those “Strong Female Character” poses by replacing them with Hawkeye doing the same thing.

The problem with I09’s Lauren Davis’ take on The Hawkeye Initiative is that it misses the story behind the story. Who are all these artists and writers and editors in the comic industry? What kind of sexist jerks would try and hide their objectification of women behind false attempts to portray a “strong female character”? Given that there’s a “war on women,” any rational human being would conclude that the perps are all very white, very Republican men. Right? Wrong.

Matt Fraction — liberal. Joe Quesada — liberal. Grant Morrison — liberal. Rick Veitch — 9/11 Conspiracy theory kook liberal. Geoff Johns — liberal. Dan Slott — liberal. Sara Pichelli — liberal. Brian Michael Bendis — liberal. Alex Ross — liberal. Mark Waid — liberal. And for many, many more you can visit the Four Color Media Monitor.

Is it possible that some of the allegedly-sexist poses these women are put in are in fact rather innocuous — but that critics are merely projecting their own sexual biases onto the images? I think so. Scrolling through the Tumblr account, anyone who has read Spider-Man knows that as a quick and agile character, many of his contortions would be interpreted as “sexist” if a woman was drawn the same way. Women have different bodies than men, an inconvenient truth that the gender police don’t want to acknowledge.

One of the biggest tells of The Hawkeye Initiative is that it doesn’t even require submissions to be from people who are actually fans of the work they’re criticizing. What if the image in question includes the Marvel equivalent of Ke$ha? What then? I guess it doesn’t matter, since all that counts to the self-righteous know-it-all are her intentions. “My statement about female empowerment matters more than my practical knowledge of the characters, their histories and their motivations.”

It may also be a shock to The Hawkeye Initiative crowd, but women are able to possess power, intelligence and sexuality at the same time. While even I get annoyed at the artist who is obviously obsessed with the porn-star-with-disturbingly-large-breast-implants look, I also don’t mind seeing a female character whose strength and amazing figure are highlighted. (Apparently, the creators of The Hawkeye Initiative have never been to a bodybuilding competition, where men and women contort themselves in interesting ways to show off as many of their best assets in one pose to audience members and the judges.)

Regardless, the next time your friend talks to you about the “war on women,” go to your stash of comics created by liberal writers and artists. Show them a good butt-shot, and then ask them if they’d still buy the product if it was a known Republican who was devising such demeaning poses.

Update: If you’re coming here from Reddit, just a heads up: I’d comment in the thread, but my first tactful rebuttal was deleted because that’s how liberal Reddit goon moderators roll. We can’t have the conservative guy actually defending himself, can we?

Robert Downey Jr.’s politics: A lesson for liberal Hulks

May 13, 2012April 22, 2015by Douglas Ernst65 Comments

robert-downey-jr-iron-man — Liberals are good at revising history, as they now attempt to do with news that Robert Downey Jr. attended a Barack Obama fundraiser. A trip down memory lane reveals they weren’t so warm and fuzzy about him when his politics were in question.

With the news that Robert Downey Jr. attended George Clooney’s $40,000 fundraiser earlier in the week, liberals incredulously asked how conservatives could have ever thought he was a Republican or perhaps even (gasp!) a conservative. As we all know, conservatives are racists, bigots and homophobes, right? Regardless, I will spell it out in ways even liberals with a mind like the Hulk can understand.

People put their children’s drawings on their refrigerator. They put cards from loved ones, their daily calendar and things they’re proud of on it. They put images on it that they don’t mind seeing every time they go to the get something to eat or drink. And so, when GQ Magazine, a piece of liberal propaganda disguised as a men’s magazine, is invited into Downey’s home and finds a picture of him with George and Laura Bush, it sends a message.

There are photos of Downey and Susan taped above the refrigerator: with President Bush and Mrs. Bush; with Tom Cruise, Mrs. Cruise, and Suri in a group hug on-set in Hawaii. The week’s schedule, in brightly colored fonts for easy reading, hangs from the bulletin board—yet another magazine interview tonight, rerecording dialogue tomorrow, a shooting day on Wednesday—along with Downey’s son’s soccer-playoff schedule.

In the liberal mind, such an act would already be considered heresy. But as with any case built on circumstantial evidence, there needed to be more. And so, we introduced the infamous New York Times interview, where Robert Downey Jr. told them that his time spent in prison had a profound impact on his politics; Downey’s liberal Hollywood critics responded by trying to convince people that he really just wanted to swim in Olympic-sized pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck.

“His values are pure Republican values … He’s a serious materialist. He loves the great clothes, the beautiful house, the cool cars. He’s a ‘protect the rich’ guy. Why should the rich have to pay for this or that? The people who have it should keep it, and the people who don’t have it shouldn’t complain.”

When Hollywood liberals start attacking the man, it sends up red flags to the world that they have him on notice: Shut up and keep quiet, “re-educate” yourself, or the character assassination will continue. Now that Downey has given up cold, hard cash to Obama, is he still a materialist? Probably not, since once liberals “evolve” their past is forgotten about the next day.

But let us dig even further back, to see what may have set off our liberal friends to begin with. Perhaps it had something to do with the launch of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, created precisely because Hollywood is the kind of place where in order to network with the elite it’s almost mandatory you attend functions like … a George Clooney, $40,000 a plate Democrat fundraiser. As rumors swelled that Downey was a Republican, the press sought answers. He refused to give them:

Breitbart simply refers to it as a continuous politics and culture posting board, and its underlying, unifying aim is just as simple: “Our goal is to create an atmosphere of tolerance, something that does not exist in this town,” he says. It’s kind of funny and ironic to read about how conservatives are being encouraged to come out of the closet.

Most amusing is the reaction from the agent for Robert Downey, Jr., who is believed to be a closet conservative … his publicist will neither confirm nor deny it, saying only, “We unfortunately have no comment, as RDJ does not comment on political matters.” (Opelika-Auburn News, Entering Stage Right, Jan. 6, 2009.)

There is no downside to announcing your political allegiance in Hollywood. None. Conservatives expect artists to be Democrats at this point. Generally, a politically mum A-list Hollywood star in the face of rumors they are conservative is another indicator that they might not fall into line with the “acceptable” positions of the industry’s power players. Refrain from comment, and liberal rags find it “most amusing.”

As I said before, can you blame Robert for not wanting to talk? The guy probably runs the gamut on any number of public policy issues, but was attacked by liberals for either a.) saying his time in prison taught him some lessons that were incompatible with liberalism, and b.) that he’d rather not talk politics and would not do so through his agent, at least as of 2009.

Now that Downey has attended a Barack Obama fundraiser, liberals would have us believe that delusional conservatives created the idea of a Hollywood star that was one of them out of pure desperation. Not true. As much as they want to deny it, liberal attacks on the man were often the catalyst for the conservatives who defended him.

The Avengers: Marvel’s finest hour

May 5, 2012April 7, 2014by Douglas Ernst2 Comments

Captain America — Run to see ‘The Avengers’ this weekend. Jump over a bus and dodge some explosions and laser beams if you have to. You’ll be glad you did.

If someone said to you years ago that Marvel Comics was going to methodically lay out a series of movies, building an audience of a core group of characters that would culminate in one big insane summer tent pole film called The Avengers, you would not have believed it. Yet, as of May 4th, 2012 they pulled it off. And not only did they pull it off, but they shattered the mold for what was possible for a superhero franchise.

My sources are giving very early estimates for Marvel’s The Avengers of between $65 million and $67 million for Friday (including $18.7M midnights) based on matinee trends. Not a record. That would bring the worldwide total to $371 million so far… and counting.

How many articles have we seen over the years with some sort of headline that asked, “Is the superhero genre dead?” It seems like a every time there’s a comic property that flops there’s an Entertainment Weekly or Entertainment Weekly knockoff that runs such a story. What the authors fail to understand is that there is plenty of strong source material — it’s up to the studios, screenwriters, actors and directors to pull their end of the bargain. With The Avengers, a seriously large cast and crew (again, across multiple movies) came together in a collaborative effort and created something magical. The movie isn’t flawless, but it’s certainly close. It could have very easily collapsed under its own weight, and the fact that it didn’t says a lot about the people working behind the scenes.

On person who deserves many pats on the back is writer and director Joss Whedon. After hearing about the bizarre health care rant he scripted for Captain America I was worried. Very worried. Whedon wisely cut the scene from the film, and for the most part stayed away from the political soapbox. Luckily, he didn’t shy away from going over each character with a fine-toothed comb early on to really figure out what their motivation was. With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line Joss Whedon came through in the clutch. I’m not sure if he got through the ordeal without an ulcer or two, but if he didn’t Marvel should be paying his medical bills.

So how does one write a movie review and not actually talk about the movie? I just did. There’s not much I need to say. Do you want to see a movie that says, “this product was made by professionals”? Do you want to see something that’s funny, filled with action, and family-friendly? Do you like good, tight writing? Do you want to see a team of actors who all appear to have been on board with the director’s vision and who have given it their best shot to make that vision a reality? If so, go see The Avengers.