Major Spoilers Best of 2012

[schleicher12000]

Might as well get things started early.

[Navarre]

"The Avengers" film will be one of the best things of 2012. I don't even have to see it to know that!

[Gaumer]

"The Avengers" and new Batman film will be one of the best things of 2012. I don't even have to see it to know that!

FTFY

[Navarre]

"The Avengers" and new Batman film will be one of the best things of 2012. I don't even have to see it to know that!

FTFY

Ha! Okay, no argument there. 

[Gaumer]

"The Avengers" and new Batman film will be one of the best things of 2012. I don't even have to see it to know that!

FTFY

Ha! Okay, no argument there. 

There are a shit-ton of killer flicks dropping this year, but I honestly believe that these two will be THE geek "argument" of the year.

[Alisha Mynx]

I'll throw my hat in with "The Avengers" because I'm more excited for that than I am the new Batman movie.  Don't get me wrong, as I am looking forward to the new Bat-Flick, but Avengers is really keeping my attention and excitement.

And while it's still early, I'd like to also say "Green Lantern: The Animated Series".  The "preview" episodes we saw in November were great.  I wasn't too thrilled with the animation style when I saw the previews for it, but upon actually watching the first episode (or first two, if that is what it was) I grew to accept it (Hal still looks a bit odd, but the aliens all looked pretty good).  It also had a pretty interesting story, setting up the series in an interesting way and not taking the typical "superhero saves Earth" route.

[Xian]

Assume I'm anticipating the big genre films and comic events, here are some other (non-exhaustive by far) items:


Miscellaneous:

Legos - Officially licensed Superman specifically, but excited about Marvel Legos too.
GTA:V - I don't play many games but when I do Rockstar reliably delivers.  An update to San Andreas, arguably the biggest game in the series.
iPad 3 - I'm waiting for one thing before jumping onto the LCD tablet train and that's pixel density.  If the iPad 3- or its nearest Android competitor- finally produces an image that matches the DPI of print (like the iPhone 4 does) then I'm sold.


TV Returning:

Young Justice - The cartoon has just started to hit its stride but with episodes only trickling out it can be hard to sustain momentum.  Given the long break, I hope the next run of episodes sucks audiences in.
Breaking Bad - The conclusion to the best drama on television.
Bob's Burgers - I admire shows with semi-competent dads who are at least trying and happy to see this uncanceled.
Justified- I love short fiction and westerns and the first season was all a series of adapted high-quality short gunfight stories.  The second season was great gangster drama.  I can't wait for season 3.
Spartacus: Vengeance - I don't watch the show, just waiting for more topless Lucy Lawless.
Breaking In - Moves to FOX, Bret Harrison of Reaper, Odette Annable recently in House, Christian Slater and Michael Rosenbaum in a live-action cartoon security firm.  Okay, I watch for Odette.


TV New:

The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra - Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my favorite shows of all-time, the teasers for the new show combines all the kung-fu, magic, and character of the original with an urban steam-punk twist!
DC Nation - The vignettes look awesome and while I'm not a big Green Lantern fan, the episodes were solid and I hope they do well as a gateway to more DC shows.
Missing - Ashley Judd and Sean Bean.
Apartment 23 - Krysten Ritter.


Movies:

Django UNchained - Did I mention I love westerns?  I'm not the biggest QT fan, but when he shows a genre love it gets a workout.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Probably counts as a genre film, but I hope it does well not only for itself but as another example of a recent-ish reboot/remake/sequel (see also: Ghost Rider: SoV) if only to salvage the WB's hopes in DCU related properties....

[Gaumer]

Can we start this with a bit of rumor milling?

So, the rumor mill is grinding over at Marvel that the Children's Crusade and X-Sanction books along with current going's on in the X-verse is going to directly build into the whole Avengers vs X-Men deally, which is supposed to revolve around the Phoenix looking for a new home with Hope being that home. Although we know NONE of this for sure, I think we're going to see more mutants be up for the whole Phoenix thing, including the Scarlet Witch and Emma, but, with all this being said,

the part of the rumor that has my attention is that we WILL see a Scarlet Witch Phoenix who will then...wait for it...

Reset the Marvel Universe ala the DC soft reboot we saw last year. Yes, its a huge maybe, and tons of rumor, but I'm glad to get it down somewhere for the "wait and see".

Assume I'm anticipating the big genre films and comic events, here are some other (non-exhaustive by far) items:


Miscellaneous:

Legos - Officially licensed Superman specifically, but excited about Marvel Legos too.

Lego? Sure, big news. But the biggest news for Lego this year will not be Superman, it will be them getting the LoTR license. Its okay for the actual toys, but the video game will be some kind of awesome.

[Navarre]

the part of the rumor that has my attention is that we WILL see a Scarlet Witch Phoenix who will then...wait for it...

Reset the Marvel Universe ala the DC soft reboot we saw last year.

With these three words...

"No more Events."

[Gaumer]

the part of the rumor that has my attention is that we WILL see a Scarlet Witch Phoenix who will then...wait for it...

Reset the Marvel Universe ala the DC soft reboot we saw last year.

With these three words...

"No more Events."

[Xian]

Lego? Sure, big news. But the biggest news for Lego this year will not be Superman, it will be them getting the LoTR license. Its okay for the actual toys, but the video game will be some kind of awesome.

I think the opening disclaimer you quote makes it pretty clear I'm not after "big news" merely personally anticipated things... given decades of knights, fantasy, viking, and Potter minifigs, I could care less about Tolkien-specific fantasy sets.

re: Line-wide reboot.  I doubt it.  While the New 52 gave the industry a boost, Marvel's market share is already reclaiming the top spot and something as drastic as a reboot would probably cause Marvel more trouble than it would solve.  A reboot will also undermine the sales of their Season One line, already solicited and in production (unless, I suppose, Season One was actually a planned reboot just posing as a OGN line and leaked intentionally, but that's a little too conspiratorial for my money).  Marvel's money doesn't come from publishing anyways... they just use it as a testbed for ideas for the real money-maker licensing and media (movies, toys, games, TV, etc).  So there's very little incentive to rock a boat that's producing a full fledged franchising film machine.  Essentially, a reboot would only make sense if they expect The Avengers film to bomb.

Much more probable is that Scarlet Witch, Hope, and Phoenix highlight the issue of what to do with extinction-level entities and a tension between action, intentions, hypocrisy, and the like.  If the Avengers protect Wanda but condemn Hope, or they put Wanda down and expect the X-Men to do the same to Hope, or the X-Men put down Wanda but protect Hope, etc... then superhero civil war can arise pretty easily (at least in mainstream comics where heroes are quick to fight).

[Gaumer]

Lego? Sure, big news. But the biggest news for Lego this year will not be Superman, it will be them getting the LoTR license. Its okay for the actual toys, but the video game will be some kind of awesome.

I think the opening disclaimer you quote makes it pretty clear I'm not after "big news" merely personally anticipated things... given decades of knights, fantasy, viking, and Potter minifigs, I could care less about Tolkien-specific fantasy sets.

re: Line-wide reboot.  I doubt it.  While the New 52 gave the industry a boost, Marvel's market share is already reclaiming the top spot and something as drastic as a reboot would probably cause Marvel more trouble than it would solve.  A reboot will also undermine the sales of their Season One line, already solicited and in production (unless, I suppose, Season One was actually a planned reboot just posing as a OGN line and leaked intentionally, but that's a little too conspiratorial for my money).  Marvel's money doesn't come from publishing anyways... they just use it as a testbed for ideas for the real money-maker licensing and media (movies, toys, games, TV, etc).  So there's very little incentive to rock a boat that's producing a full fledged franchising film machine.  Essentially, a reboot would only make sense if they expect The Avengers film to bomb.

Much more probable is that Scarlet Witch, Hope, and Phoenix highlight the issue of what to do with extinction-level entities and a tension between action, intentions, hypocrisy, and the like.  If the Avengers protect Wanda but condemn Hope, or they put Wanda down and expect the X-Men to do the same to Hope, or the X-Men put down Wanda but protect Hope, etc... then superhero civil war can arise pretty easily (at least in mainstream comics where heroes are quick to fight).

Sweet! Real discussion. Please post more often.

Lego? Mine was opinion as well, and please, keep sharing. Everything's shiny . As much fun as it would be to build a Daily Planet or...I'm not sure what else Lego could push for building in a Superman line, LotR offers so many uber-awesome things to build it borders on EPIC. But a Superman Lego game is going to be very cool, I just see me personally having much more fun with my kid on Lego LotR.

Oh, I seriously doubt there's going to be a reboot of any sort over at Marvel, and, if there is any sort, it will be very limited, ala bringing back mutants and such.

The season 1 line only adds to the rumor. And rumors, by their nature, are conspiratorial

The whole "comics being a testbed" for so-called other things is not a debate that should be discussed here, but I simply don't buy it. Is it a driving force for other markets? Of course it is, and always has been. Just like everything else, the marketing of one thing by basing is on another has just been pushed to 21st century speed and brashness. The success of The Avengers film has nothing to do with anything that has happened in comics since the 70s. As I've said, its my opinion that the comics while legitimizing the other markets wouldn't be around if they didn't make money. A reboot isn't going to hurt sales.

Again with the same-old, same-old from HoM? There HAS to be some twist in the whole thing that makes it not just House of M in reverse.

Xian. Stick around and post, please

[Xian]

A reboot isn't going to hurt sales.

Which misses the point... as long as Marvel is close to #1- if not #1- they don't care about book sales as a larger corporate entity.  Publishing, sure, has to do their best, but they don't get to pull the trigger on something as major as a line-wide reboot unless someone upstairs is unhappy (like Time Warner openly declaring the end of their hands-off "custodial" relationship with DC, google it) and Disney has no reason to be unhappy at this point.  The modern (post-70s) comics absolutely informed the development of Marvel's film franchises from the look of Iron Man (Ari Granov might as well have storyboarded sequences for the film), to the storytelling of Thor (why JMS gets a cameo), to directly lifted hooks in both Hulk and Captain American, to more esoteric things like fostering relationships with creators like Whedon.  You force a reboot and you shut down that engine which adds polish and authenticity to your billion dollar film franchises and merchandising machine, and replace it with muddled continuity management stalling storytelling for a couple of years just to sell marginally more comics?

No, they'd rather keep the train rolling for the next (post-70s) Bane, Venom, Parallax, or Deadpool to poach for the films (and toys and games and Slushie cups, etc).  That isn't to say reboots are mutually exclusive from new marketable concepts or characters, but they're not particularly conducive to them since so much of your time is spent retelling and reestablishing pre-existing properties (which you can do anyways without rebooting).  An ongoing universe tends to generate new IP better than retreading an old one.

Look at the comparable value of the brands:
http://ifanboy.com/articles/quantifying-the-value-of-the-marvel-and-dc-brands/

Marvel's brand, by now, is about $6 billion (a 50% return on their investment in consumer products alone!).  DC is only a fraction of the WB's $6 billion (most of which is Harry Potter and other movie properties) and that fraction is mostly Batman.  So DC's situation and being driven to reboot isn't Marvel's.  A single character property, like Deadpool, literally accounts for millions for Marvel value.  Which means, ironically, that Deadpool as a concept- as IP- is individually valued more than the total revenue of publishing!  So Disney would much rather publishing make more Deadpools than even double their book sales... and that generally means a kibosh on reboots

[Gaumer]

I'll start by saying again, I don't think there will be a reboot. Its a rumor, and a fun one at that.

We fundamentally disagree on what comics mean to other things. I don't, for instance, think for one second that anything they do in the comics from this point forward would have any effect on anything else. I firmly believe DC and Marvel could cancel every comic on the shelf and my kid would still know who Batman and Spider-Man are and characters would still make for blockbusters.

 Muddled continuity? Does it get murkier?

The train that is rolling, if comics are in fact a testbed for other things, is slow and each and every car is the same car I've seen before.

The whole corporate thing aside, which, as a consumer, must occur for me to have any sort of fanboyish daydream about what comics should be doing (I mean, I can't say "oh well, my comics suck, but the new movie is coming out and I get these awesome Slurpie cups"), comic book readers deserve to have their medium of choice dealt with better than a tool to build up other things, and doing something risky and fun and outgoing that could breathe some much needed fresh air into a stale feeling collection of monthly titles and never-ending events.

But, now we run into the wall. When Marvel IS making money hand over fist with the flicks and the comics that made those movies possible suffer when do the two collide to force hands on the comic side? Readership has gone down year after year, but the movies do better and better with each new release. The problem IS what I said before, today's comics have no real bearing on the films.

This can only mean terrible things for comic books.

Will there be a reboot at Marvel? Prolly not because of the horribly boring and completely depressing  corporate reasoning you've outlined. Should there be a reboot over at Marvel? They sure as shit need to do something and yet another X-Men vs. Avengers multi-tie-in event isn't doing it.

[Xian]

I firmly believe DC and Marvel could cancel every comic on the shelf and my kid would still know who Batman and Spider-Man are and characters would still make for blockbusters.

Again this misses the point.  Marvel doesn't care if you know who Batman and Spidey are through the comics (or TV shows, films, games, etc).  They care if the comics create bankable characters like Punisher, Blade, Elektra, Constantine, Doomsday, Bane, Venom, Deadpool, Ghost Rider, etc.  When Marvel Entertainment was sold to Disney, aside from the sales figure what was the next most quoted stat?  Marvel's portfolio of 5,000 characters.  The relevant money-making IP.  Disney only cares that publishing is #1 to the extent that it gives them leverage to poach the best talent and cultivate the future creator fan.  They don't care if Taskmaster can double sales via a reboot unless it shows that Taskmaster is viable beyond comics.  The question then is whether a line-wide reboot means you get new takes on Taskmaster... or will your talent be too busy "reinvigorating" pre-existing A-listers?  DC doesn't have that luxury since the brand strength of its existing characters is already too weak (comparatively... "Who is GL?") so they're all about reinvigorating their brand.

When Marvel IS making money hand over fist with the flicks and the comics that made those movies possible suffer when do the two collide to force hands on the comic side? Readership has gone down year after year, but the movies do better and better with each new release. The problem IS what I said before, today's comics have no real bearing on the films

No, this is precisely the point.  Disney and WB DON'T care about publishing sales unto themselves which is exactly WHY they tolerate a hemorrhaging department.  Heck, Barnes and Noble IS books and THEY just quit publishing!  Disney and WB DON'T CARE if your appreciation for superheroes causes you to buy an action figure or a movie ticket instead of three issues or a videogame instead of two trades... it's all money spent on their IP.

How do they get you to spend your money on their IP in SOME form?  They deliver it in mass market form- film, TV, games- after they've used the comics as a testbed.  If that weren't the case then why are the recent DCA direct-to-disc productions almost entirely adaptations of works from the last 15 years (and most more recent than that)?  Why release toy lines based entirely around comic events?  Why is a TV series inspired by ALIAS coming out rather than use some established character from the 70s or before?  Why is Civil War being adapted to prose?  Comics are basically ad, reader, and parent-company subsidized pop-culture farms.  No, not everything is a success or sticks, but it is a low cost to run in order to develop properties for TV, film, toys, games, and more.

Put another way, you are trying to argue that comics have little influence on IP outside of comics themselves, I'd turn it around and say try to find a comic-based property that is devoid of contemporary comic-book influence.  You might say, for example, that the comics have "no real bearing" on Batman Arkham City, but the WB doesn't support publishing because publishing "controls" Arkham City, it supports publishing because it cultivates someone like Paul Dini who contributes to the success of a billion dollar property (between both Arkham games).  A single twist, character, concept, etc. that contributes to a more successful medium justifies publishing.  Comics creates a body to shift through, an essence to distill, and IP to protect in order for the cream of the crop to appear in other mediums (be it designs for toys, costumes for film, plots for TV, acclaimed creators for games, etc).  While I agree that even if publishing went away, they'd still exploit such mediums, I think you underestimate the difficulty of pulling stuff from the ether (or pre-70s) alone.  If it were otherwise we wouldn't see so much of modern comics in our non-comic media.

Or to reverse the point- why Disney would stop Marvel from relaunching- look at why WB arguably precipitated a DC relaunch.  The WB was essentially hands off DC for decades, but the restructuring and increased pressure on publishing came from other media stresses... the exhaustion of the Harry Potter franchise, the comparitive success of Marvel properties, etc (NOT publishing sales, since DC had been #2 for years).  If publishing had no bearing on the larger media then there would be no point to restructuring DC.  No, it was the impact publishing had on the developing the IP that spurred the WB into actively meddling with DC.

Given that this is their primary contribution to their parent company (again, what's highlighted in the sale?  the IP of 5000 characters NOT the volume, distribution, or audience of publishing sales) the MAIN reason Disney would ever intervene in Marvel publishing is when their actions would affect that... thus something that stalls or limits the generation of IP (like a reboot) in the face of present success is to be denied (even at the expense of publishing sales).  To put this into perspective, Disney paid more to recapture just the distribution rights of Iron Man 3 than it funded publishing for 2010.  So the money publishing makes in terms of book sales isn't what Disney cares about, it's the ideas, creators, characters, and IP publishing generates that lead to properties like Iron Man, ALIAS, etc. they care about.