The USPS Marvel Super Heroes stamp series (2)

Here are my comments on the remaining five stamps in the Postal Service's Marvel Super Heroes stamp release.

The Silver Surfer in his computer-generated version is now a Hollywood star thanks to the second Fantastic Four movie.

Which is fitting, since he did get his start as a villain going up against the Fantastic Four:


But he was a popular character, so he really made the rounds:



Spider-Woman hasn't made the big screen yet, at least not that I'm aware. But give her time.
There was a 1998 TV movie version of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, though, with David Hasselhoff in the title role.

Iron Man is on his way to the movies, scheduled for next year.

For characters like Iron Man, the Human Torch or the Silver Surfer, doing a film version with live actors is hard to imagine prior to computer-generated animation.

Iron Man has a super-duper metal suit that protects him from pretty much anything the bad guys can throw at him. He flies, too. In his civilian identity, he's a billionaire war profiteer, or something like that.

Elektra was immortalized by her screen portrayals in Daredevil and Elektra by Jennifer Garner of Alias, also one of my favorite actresses. Yeah, I know the Elektra solo film wasn't too popular, but who cares? I mean, if Jennifer Garner is on the screen during the movie, that fact alone makes it watchable.

But the character is also an intriguing one, and Garner's athletic ability (she claims to do her own stunts) as well as her acting talents, as shown by her multiple-personality performances as Sydney Bristow in Alias make her a great choice to play the character.

Elektra was originally introduced as a character in the Daredevil comics. The backstory here is that Daredevil was a second-rank Marvel character, until the now-legendary Frank Miller (artist for 300, another comic recently made into a movie) took over writing and drawing the series. He turned Daredevil from another goody-two-shoes super-hero who swung around off ledges and beat up bad guy into a dark, deeply troubled, brooding, existential heavy.

Part of the heaviosity of the Frank Miller Daredevil was that he fell in love with Elektra, a professional ninja assassin. Ben Affleck's Daredevil in the film reflects the dark Frank Miller version of the character.

Miller also returned Batman to his vigilante roots in 1986 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns three-book series. He made Gothan City into a futuristic dystopia which drives a middle-aged Bruce Wayne back into his bat-costume. But he wasn't the nicey-nice Adam West version, either.

While saving some innocents from a bad guy with an automatic weapon, we see Miller's Batman thinking, "There are seven working defenses from this position. Three of them disarm with minimal contact. Three of them kill. The other..."

Holy Dirty Harry, Batman! You get the idea. Frank Miller's heroes are dark, tormented, ambiguous. At least Daredevil, Batman and Elektra come out that way in his treatment of them.

Wolverine is also a movie star thanks to Hugh Jackman's sympathetic portrayal of the hot-headed mutant in the three X-Men movies.

Wolverine is an exception among the ten characters on this stamp release in that the comic book cover they pair with his image is one that doesn't even include his character.

Speaking of the X-Men movies, one of the things that made those films good was having Patrick Stewart as the grave and serious Dr. Xavier. He provided a kind of dramatic anchor for the films that made it easier to go with the flow on the fantastic things that were happening on screen.

Also, I just saw in the news that one of the X-Men film veterans, Anna Paquin, who portrayed Rogue (who was from Meridian, Mississippi in the film version), is one of the top candidates for the lead role in an upcoming Wonder Woman movie.

Lynda Carter's version of Wonder Woman will be hard to top. But I'm rooting for Anna Paquin to get the part.

Tags: anna paquin, elektra, iron man, jennifer garner, silver surfer, spider-woman, super heroes stamps, wolverine

The USPS Marvel Super Heroes stamp series (1)

I grew up reading comic books. That's a big part of how I learned to love reading. So I enjoy seeing comic book heroes making hit movies. And also the comic-book themed postage stamps the US Postal Service has been issuing. The latest features 10 heroes from the Marvel Comics universe. (Multiple universes are commonplace in the comics.)

Spider-Man has hit the big time with a major movie career, which just had a hit with the third in a series. He may have reached the limit that all science-fiction and comic-book series on the screen hit, where the action is so fantastic it has to go campy and silly. But for now, he's riding high:

And Franklin Roosevelt collected stamps. So anyone who thinks this post is geeky, well, you're just out of it.

The Hulk is a star of the Silver Screen, too. I particularly like the Hulk, because I've always had a soft spot for heroes that were named Bruce. Bruce Banner, in his case.

I'm sure Prince Namor, aka, the Sub-Mariner, will make it to Hollywood sooner or later. This could be a job for Brad Pitt. I mean, Ben Affleck is already playing Daredevil. It would be kind of a stretch to make Daredevil a twin to an water-breathing, sea-dwelling Atlantean prince.

The Fantastic Four are also on a roll at the box office. But with their second film, they may already be hitting the limits of comic-book film series' life span. I mean, after saving the earth from being devoured by a humongous galactic carnivore, how do you follow that up? Also, the Four's power are exotic enough that the require quite a bit of computer animation. But then, so do Spider-Man and the Hulk.

I'm always fascinated by how some literary characters enjoy incredibly long lives: Sherlock Holmes, Simon Templar aka the Saint, James Bond. Comic book characters may have a special advantage in the longevity department because their main fan base of kids constantly turns over. Captain America has been around since the 1940s. His current logevity was called into question earlier this year, when he was assassinated while resisting over-the-top government anti-terrorism measures that required all super-heroes to register with the government. But death is not a barrier to return appearances in the comics, either.

As I recall, back in the "Freedom Fries" days, the National Review crowd got worked up over some Captain America comic that depicted the World Trade Center attack and they thought it was insufficiently jingoistic. Now that's taking comic books pretty seriously!

Tags: captain america, hulk, the thing, spider-man, sub-mariner