Monday, April 25, 2011

Wolverine, Popeye, and Death

•It’s ironic that radiation in Japan has made it less likely that we’ll see a movie about mutants, but since Darren Aronofsky decided not to spend a year there filming The Wolverine, I’m not confident that film’s going to happen on schedule (it was supposed to be out next year). 

•If fear of radioactive residue on leafy plants such as spinach becomes a sufficiently popular topic in the wake of the Japan disasters, though, maybe they could retool the Wolverine film as a Popeye origin story.  No reason Popeye can’t fight ninjas: “Oh, shuriken, you say? Well, I’m sure I can,” (biff, bop, etc.). 

NOTE: If you join me at tonight’s Ron Paul event at Webster Hall or tomorrow’s right-wing Tweet Up at O’Lunney’s on W. 50th, I think it’s safe to say I could be talked into doing an audio version of the preceding Popeye impression

•Coincidentally(??), right around the time of the tsunami, Marvel Comics finished a miniseries written by Fred van Lente and Greg Pak in which a Shinto deathgod temporarily destroyed the Marvel multiverse.  I suppose it would have been tasteless to tack on an ending in which, as he’s defeated, he vengefully summons this year’s tsunami, but it would surely have been at least a bit aesthetically tempting to tie it in (though the writing was presumably complete months earlier).

•With or without Wolverine, though, we’ve got X-Men: First Class in theatres in two months, and I am going on record predicting it will be the best geek film of 2011.  

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