In Graphic Detail
Expectations for “Avengers: Infinity War” premiering this weekend are soaring higher than Iron Man.
It's expected to be a box office blockbuster on the order of fellow Marvel Studios movie “Black Panther” which made $676 million in the United States since its Feb. 16 release. “Black Panther” surpassed “Titanic” to become the third-highest grossing film ever.
Featuring literally every Marvel superhero that's appeared on screen in 18 previous films, “Avengers: Infinity War” is the culmination of 10 years of planning and sets the stage for the next 10 years' worth of superhero movies.
While good for Marvel owner Disney's bottom line, are all these event movies coming hard on the heels of one another (Three more movies in what is called “The Marvel Cinematic Universe” are slated for release in 2018.) really good for the film industry, fans of the comic books or even reading in general?
Peter Bess, assistant director of the Butler Public Library, 218 N. McKean St., said of “Infinity War,” “My guess is this one is going to surpass 'Black Panther.'”
And the library's growing collection of graphic novels shows the equally growing influence of superhero movies.
Bess said graphic novels are either collections of individual comic book issues put together and bound between covers or a separate work of fiction or nonfiction where a “graphic novel is the only format this has been released in.”
Some graphic novels are adaptations of popular fiction.
For instance, Bess said, “'Game of Thrones' is huge, so they released a graphic novel adaptation of 'Game of Thrones.'”
“There are superhero stories, fantasy, supernatural horror, biographies and nonfiction stories being told in this format, ”said Bess.
“In recent years with the rise in movie and television superheroes there has been a rise in requests in books, both novels and graphic novels,” said Bess.
He said the library's graphic novels are found in all sections of the library: the children's, young adults and adults section.
“Our adult graphic novel collection is the newest. We added that three or four years ago. Most of the adult graphic novels were only ever released as a graphic novel,” he said.
While the young adult and adult graphic novels are kept in their own sections, children's graphic novels are mixed in with the general collection due to a lack of space, Bess said, although all graphic novels are marked with a special sticker and “most of the adult graphic novels are for a mature audience and marked as such.”“I think it encourages reading because you are reaching out with a new format to those not reached by old formats,” said Bess. “Whether it is a novel or a graphic novel doesn't matter because all that matters is a good story.”“I don't see graphic novels as something you outgrow and move onto to literature and fiction,” Bess said.That could be hard for some to understand.“For the older generation, there is still a stigma attached to graphic novels and comic books. They see it as a juvenile medium,” Bess said.For today's film studios, the only thing film executives see when they look at a comic book is dollar signs.And the Marvel Cinematic Universe is evidence of an attention to detail and a shrewd business plan, according to Brian Burke, who teaches film and superhero mythology at the University of Pittsburgh, St. Francis University and Butler County Community College.“It's continuity, for the past 10 years they've been linking these movies,” said Burke. That's 18 movies and three television shows to thread with foreshadowing, Easter eggs and fan shout-outs leading up to the Mad Titan Thanos' quest for the Infinity Stones in “Infinity War.”“They've had it in the past. The James Bond movies had a very loose continuity that tied the films together,” said Burke. “If you saw 'For Your Eyes Only,' the villain Bond killed at the beginning was the man who killed Bond's wife in “On Her Majesty's Secret Service.'”But now, Burke said, the connections from one movie to the next are on a grand scale.“Think of what it cost to pay for the actors to do this,” he said. “There are 76 main characters in 'Avengers: Infinity War.' It is going to have to make a billion or billion and a half dollars to be able to make a sequel.”
David Skeele, playwright and theater professor at Slippery Rock University, could probably wait for that sequel.But he said he isn't surprised there is such anticipation for “Avengers: Infinity War.”Skeele said, “There is a certain audience demanding greater and greater visual spectacle.“You see it in musical theater which is why it has become so popular,” said Skeele. “The apex of it is 'Miss Saigon' with its helicopter landing on the roof.”But he warned, “There is really only so far for movies to go, at least with CGI (computer generated images) anyway. There is probably a ceiling.“I'm exhausted by it now. There is going to be a saturation point,” Skeele said. “This is going to be the biggest superhero movie every made. How are you going to top that?”“The trend is going to swing back to smaller, more intimate movies,” he predicted.
That's not going to happen in the opinion of Burke.Moves on Wall Street could dictate even more cataclysmic events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.“Because if you are familiar, what comes with Disney's acquiring the rights to Fox? It gets the rights back to the X-Men, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four,” said Burke.“And remember the Infinity Stones have the ability to reset the template of all time, space and reality,” he said, adding they could be the perfect opening to bring the X-Men and the rest into the same universe as the Avengers.“Remember they couldn't say mutants, they had to call them enhanced. Now they can do a shift in reality and bring in the Fantastic Four, mutants, Deadpool,” Burke said.
