Paul Rudd as Ant-Man

I've been waiting to see who gets to be Ant-Man, but I'll be honest - this isn't the news I was hoping for. Paul Rudd has been cast as Ant-Man, and I won't pass my final judgment on whether or not I'm ok with that, but my first impression is negative. It's nothing against Rudd; its because Marvel has cast an actor known for comedies as Hank Pym. At least it's Hank Pym and not Scott Lang, who was rumored to be the protagonist. Scott is cool, but I've never considered him to be the main Ant-Man. THE Ant-Man is Hank Pym, a very dark and fairly disturbed character, and they've cast a comedic actor to play him. Now do you see my problem with this? From what I've heard, this movie will be one of the more comedic Marvel movies, which is just straight-up wrong. Spider-Man is funny. Deadpool is funny. In a really twisted and dark way, even the Punisher can be kinda funny. But Ant-Man? Ant-Man is not funny. Funny is like this:

Not funny is like this:

And Hank Pym isn't like

He's like

 





If they want a funny Marvel movie, why don't they Just MAKE A DEADPOOL MOVIE ALREADY! There's even a script ready to go as soon as they get the green light! (More on that later.) Anyway, people make the argument that you can't take a guy seriously when he shrinks down to tiny size and talks to ants. I see their point, but mustn't reduce his identity to his power. Hank used  his own brain patterns when creating Ultron, an extremely powerful indestructible robot who wants to exterminate the human race, so Hank is responsible for thousands if not millions of deaths. Is that enough, or do you want more? How about the guilt from his creation of Ultron leading him to insanity, clinical depression, and his relationship with the Wasp becoming gradually more abusive until he beat her and they split up. It's some heavy stuff, man. Anyone who thinks Ant-Man can't be a serious character clearly needs to go read some comicbooks. I'm not saying I think the movie will be bad though; I'm looking forward to it. I'm just disappointed that it's probably going to be a comedy. Just like how I think Iron Man 3 made the third and fourth worst plot decisions for a comicbook movie ever (the second worst being Deadpool's treatment in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the absolute worst being revealing Judge Dredd's face in the Stallone movie), but my net opinion of the movie remains positive. My only other issue with this is their timing. I'm pretty sure Ant-Man won't come out until after Age of Ultron, which means they'll change Ultron's backstory, which wipes away a huge piece of Hank Pym's identity. If nothing else though, a movie will make people see that Ant-Man can be cool, which is something I think needs to happen. I'm skeptically optimistic if that makes any sense. Let's just hope Disney doesn't mess this up.

Avengers 2 -- My Thoughts

So a little while ago as I'm sure you already know, it was announced that Avengers 2 will be called Age of Ultron, the same name as a comicbook series happening right now. However, that doesn't mean it will follow that story, and I seriously doubt it will for two reasons. Number one is that movies never follow just one comicbook story arc. They usually combine a couple like how Iron Man 2 combined Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle with War Machine's origin story, then added some original story. The other reason is that in the Age of Ultron comicbooks, Ultron basically wins and kills a ton of people, including some superheroes. Marvel wouldn't introduce a new hero into their cinematic universe just to kill off since that would just be a waste. Even more importantly is that the second movie is too soon to do the story where the hero gets broken and has to rise back up. Look at the Iron Man and Dark Knight trilogies. Both of them waited until the third movie. So based on that, I'd say the Avengers will follow the same formula of origin story, hero(es) kicking some butt, then hero(es) almost losing but then making a comeback. We were all expecting Thanos because of his after credits scene, but Ultron is a great villain and I was expecting him to be in some Avengers movie or another. I'm down with Ultron, even though he was created by Ant-Man, and Ant-Man doesn't come out until after Avengers 2, which means they either introduce him early or change Ultron's origin, possibly to being created by Tony Stark, which I would not be down with. Something else I'm not down with is the fact that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch will be in it. I appreciate that they're trying to incorporate some of the less known characters, but I've never liked Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch. There. I said it. I assume you'll want to know what I have against them, so I'll tell you. And if you don't want to know, then I'd appreciate it if you take your negativity elsewhere. This is a positive environment... except for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Scarlet Witch seems to have mental breakdowns on a weekly basis, plus she eliminated most of the mutants in the world, betrayed the Avengers on several occasions, and also created an alternate universe where the world is ruled by the House of Magnus (aka her family). On top of that, no one really knows what she does. It seems like her power is essentially a deus ex machina that does whatever's convenient at the time. And Quicksilver. Oh, Quicksilver. He was tolerable as a villain, but once he turned good, he just became a less cool version of the Flash and with old guy hair. I know it's supposed to be silver since his name's Quicksilver, but it just looks like white old guy hair. Besides being a watered down Flash with old person hair, he's also extremely overprotective of his sister. Normally, I can understand a guy wanting to protect his sister, but when the sister is the Scarlet Witch, who I just said is a deus ex machina character, it's unnecessary and just gets annoying. The one thing I do like about these two is that they're the son and daughter of Magneto, but oh what's that? Oh, that's right. Since there are two separate studios making Marvel movies, they can't use Magneto! And isn't that just fantastic. Something I can speak positively about without being highly sarcastic is the fact that the Vision will be in it. I like the Vision, and since Ultron is in it, I'm basically sure they'll follow the original story of scientist creates robot, robot evolves and turns evil, robot creates android, android evolves and turns good. It gives the story a nice sense of family, since Ultron is like a son to Dr. Pym, and a father to the Vision, therefore the Vision is Pym's grandson. Kinda. By the way, I know Hank Pym had a pretty bad mental breakdown, but that was only once, and it was because he created a genocidal robot using his own brain patterns, and thus feels responsible for thousands of deaths. What's Scarlet Witch's excuse?

Ant-Man Movie

Apparently, Marvel plans on giving Ant-Man a movie. That's not a total shock to me since I think it would've been nice if his movie had come before the  Avengers so then he could be a founding member like he should be. But I also thought they might not introduce him into the Marvel movie universe since some people might not think he's very cool. They would be wrong of course, but some people would think that. I actually thought they would skip Ant-Man, Giant-Man, etc. and go right to Yellowjacket. But that's assuming they use Hank Pym, who, from what I hear won't be the main character. He'll be in it, but mostly for the purpose of passing down the mantle to Scott Lang. Personally, I have nothing against Scott Lang; he can be pretty cool. But for me, the real Ant-Man will always be Hank Pym. From what I've heard, they've decided against Hank being the protagonist because of a couple chapters in his history that would prevent it from being as family friendly as they want. I guess beating the Wasp and being indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people because of the robot he created is a little dark. Plus, they probably thought it would be harder to support a man who once beat his wife. Understandable, but they didn't have to put that in the movie. And I don't think that makes him a bad person. He was insane at the time, and should be considered a good person who, while insane, did one really bad thing. Moving on, I think Ultron would've be a great villain for the movie if they were willing to make it a little darker and  about the original Ant-Man. But they're not. Mind you, I like Scott Lang, but I just think Pym could use a movie. At least if they put Lang in Avengers 2, which they'd better do, he's not a founding Avenger, so Lang joining later stays consistent with the comic books. And who knows, maybe they'll put Ultron in there too. Even if the Ant-Man movie won't be the way I would make it, I'm still excited since I think both Ant-Men are underrated and awesome.

I Don't Trust Robots.

First of all, I need to make a couple things clear. One, when I say I don't trust robots, I'm saying I wouldn't if I knew or met them in person. Two, I like robots; most of them are awesome. I just don't trust them. There are too many robots that were either created for evil, or made for good but turned evil. Think about it. Cylons, Terminators, the Droid Army from Star Wars, every Decepticon, Ultron, the Manhunters, and so many more. Mind you, there are robots I do trust, but they have done much to earn it. For example, I trust Optimus Prime because he has proven himself to be a very honorable person. Yes, some robots (not all, but some) are people too. I trust R2 - D2 because in six movies and a TV series, he has yet to fail the Republic or the Rebel Alliance. Under the right circumstances, I might even trust Soundwave. He's extremely loyal to Megatron and never fails him. For that to happen though, I might need to be Megatron. The same goes for Tekik if I had founded Sinestro Corps ..... which I suppose is technically impossible because only Sinestro himself would name it Sinestro Corps. It would have to be called something different, but you know what I'm saying. Also, I trust some Cylons, but only some of the human models. Well, actually, I suppose if I was their leader, I would reluctantly trust the Centurions. By this time you've probably noticed that the list of robots who have earned my trust contains both good and evil ones. It's a lot harder for me to trust an evil one, but not impossible. The circumstances just have to be right. There are also a lot of good robots I don't trust. For example, C3PO. He's friendly and not one for betrayal, but he's not very capable. He can do his job well as an interpreter or something like that, but he's been blasted apart, had his head put on a Battle Droid body, etc. too many times. Or let's jump to the Transformers universe for a minute. Rodimus Prime lead the forces of good for a time, but I wouldn't trust him. He's infamous for being one of the worst leaders ever. While that may be a little harsh, he did do a bad job. He once trusted Grimlock to operate a complex machine. Grimlock. Seriously. Grimlock is my second favorite Autobot; I even have a G1 Grimlock figure on my desk right now, but even I know that he's not qualified for complicated tasks. He's extremely powerful, but not very smart. He was created for war, so fighting should be, and usually is, his only job. His lack of versatility is why I only partially trust him. You're allowed to love a TV character without fully trusting him, right? But back to Rodimus, overestimating your friends is as bad as underestimating your enemies. Now let's go to Terminator. I would eventually be able to trust Marcus from Salvation and Arnold from T2 or T3, but it would take a while. I think I would be very skeptical of their good intentions, but I would give them a chance to prove themselves. once they did, I doubt I would have any problems trusting them. At least until the future in the Arnolds' case. Both of them were evil until they were captured by the Resistance. But both of them die in our time, so I guess I wouldn't need to worry about them. But that's one of the many movies, shows and comic books that have taught me not to trust robots.