Marvel - No More Origin Stories?

The story making the rounds of the Interwebs is that Ant Man will be the last Marvel film with an origin story (see Latino Review). Which. Is. Awesome. I mean, how many times do we need a Spider-Man origins movie? I would say, "none times."

Guardians showed you can introduce new characters with minimal "origins" material and, as long as the story, acting, and visuals are good, the movie will work. Marvel has also set the stage with their first 10 films, creating a universe teaming with superhumans, aliens, guys wearing powered armor, etc. Viewers will have no problem just accepting someone like a Doctor Strange (the first "new character without an origin film") as the magic-using Sorcerer Supreme without needing 45 minutes being told how this happened.

Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Just Cancel It.

Caught and episode of SHIELD last night. Take bland, stereotypical characters, add dull talk and boring action, stir in a screenplay that was, apparently, written by a 10-year-old and you have...MAOS. This is so bad, I think Marvel needs to pull the plug before it taints their movie franchise.

After 10 episodes, none of the characters have any personality or arc; they have a mishmash of action movie and Whedonesque tics and traits, but that's it. The actors, are generic, going through the motions, without bringing any depth to to roles. To be fair, they are given little to work with.

Which is the main problem with the series; the writing is terrible. The scripts are jammed full of cliches. In this episode we have the character saying something insulting about another character, then saying "he's right behind me, isn't he?" How original! This kind of laziness is endemic in the series.

Ultimately, the show is just too dull and unoriginal to watch. This is the first failure in the Marvel shared universe; let's hope subsequent films and the Marvel/Netflix partnership learns from this miss-step. Marvel can work on the small screen; but only if the creative teams involved don't turn out dull, cliche-ridden stories.

The Comixology Meltdown And Cloud-Based Problems

On 10Mar13, Marvel and ComiXology - the popular online and tablet e-comics retailer - launched a special offer; 700 Marvel comics for free. Surprisingly, for a business that is built on cloud-based comics retail and storage, inadequate thought was put into capacity planning. Comixology's servers ground to a halt. Not only were the free issues inaccessible; existing purchases were no longer downloadable, although those on devices could still be read. However, like most people, I don't store every comic I own on my iPad. In the case of those comics purchased through the Marvel app (based on ComiXology's technology and pulling from ComiXology servers) I have spent the last week trying to restore them all, since I had to uninstall the app in order to clear the errors created by the failure to load the free comics.

The point of this is actually not to specifically beat up on Marvel or ComiXology; rather, it is to look at the whole model of cloud-based application delivery and content storage. The comics "purchased" are not files that are transferred to the buyer; rather, you are given an unlimited usage license. You do NOT own the comics you buy. This is a problem when the retailer - ComiXology - is no longer able to deliver the files to the license holder - me. What happened here, of course, is a technical problem, one that has been corrected. However, it does lead one to ask some serious questions, the most important being "what happens if ComiXology is no longer in existence?" With physical media, or with electronic media transferred to you, this is not a problem. Most people have the expectation that when they "buy" something, they will have the use of it for as long as they wish.

It also shows the limits of cloud-based solutions. When there are network problems, when you don't have connectivity, or when the provider fails to plan for increased usage, then the results can be catastrophic. While not being able to download my comics does not rise to the level of catastrophe, if this had been business critical information, then the "sorry about that" response from ComiXology would have been met with derision. As we become an increasingly electronically-based society we need to take steps to ensure the information we depend on is constantly accessible and stored in a way that guarantees it cannot be lost due to a single system failure.

If your entire model is based on convenience and accessibility, then you have to deliver those things reliably. This week, ComiXology and Marvel failed to do this...and called an entire model of business and information distribution into question.