Marvel Studios brought home a big prize back in 2015 when they announced they had partnered with Sony Pictures to bring Spider-Man into the MCU.  The Internet broke, and hope was renewed that Marvel could one day bring back other franchises sold off to other studios during a time of financial crisis. 

As celebration turned into speculation, Marvel explained they weren’t going to explore Spider-Man’s origin story and that his introduction would come in Captain America: Civil War.  The cameo was stellar, and the hype for Homecoming (the title, not so much) went through the roof. 

The single best decision for the movie was the exclusion of an origin story — which would have made it the third retelling in 15 years.  Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives ready to go, and he’s a bit more evolved than any previous version’s first single-movie appearance. 

Looking back, each film in the series had something new or original to offer, even if the overall package was hit or miss. 

The first two films are considered classics — rightly so and each for varying reasons.  The first film, Alien, was a gripping horror movie that gave science fiction movies a new angle.  Its sequel, James Cameron’s Aliens, went the more-is-better route, giving audiences a war movie pitting human forces against an overwhelming and superior company of predators. 

Subsequent movies weren’t as well-received — Alien 3 went through numerous rewrites, and the final result felt like a letdown in contrast to what could have been.  Alien: Resurrection went far into the future with a cloned Ripley and an interesting cast of characters, but it lacked the spirit of previous films. 

And the prequel Prometheus tried to expand the lore while exploring religious and moral plot points.  Many felt it was too convoluted and messy, while others critiqued it for silly characters who just couldn’t keep themselves from dying. 

The first Guardians of the Galaxy was a huge success for Marvel, and I’m not just talking about box office receipts. 

Naysayers worried about “the big risk” of making a movie with a talking raccoon and his companion, a talking tree with only one scripted line.  It was the comic-book movie projected it to fail — a potentially huge failure to launch that had Hollywood analysts holding their heads in fear of the impending collapse of Marvel Studios’ cinematic universe. 

But Guardians of the Galaxy soared despite being one of Marvel’s lesser-known comic book titles, and viewers were treated to the best Star Wars movie of this generation (Rogue One included).  That raccoon and talking tree became the talk of the town, and merchandise sales added more to Disney’s coffers.  A sequel was inevitable — failure, or no — and thanks to the successes of the first, the onus to get audiences to buy in has been tabled and replaced with the freedom to build up and off characters, settings, and major threats. 

Guardians of the Galaxy vol.  2 kicks off just as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), and company get ready to fulfill their latest job — inter-dimensional pest-control.  Buoyed by their success in taking out Rohan the Accuser, the team has become the go-to group for solving galaxy-sized problems. 

While the X-Men movies have basically been Wolverine-centric, it was X-Men Origins: Wolverine that featured the first onscreen appearance of the Merc With a Mouth — Deadpool — who eventually got his own solo movie that made a strong case for R-rated comic-book flicks. 

Studios have traditionally shied away from restricting comic-book movies to adults because of financial reasons — toys, merchandise, and a larger audience filled with teens and children. 

Which is, by James Mangold’s admission, why The Wolverine ended so badly — Logan fights a robot samurai and loses his claws, which somehow grow back. 

Hrm. 

Anyways, for what it’s worth, The Wolverine was better than Origins — though that’s not saying much.  Origins was incredibly bad, and if I had to sit through it, I’d want the leaked version stripped of its special effects for educational reasons. 

Batman’s foes have an existential crisis in his latest outing, The LEGO Batman Movie. 

Kicking off with an amazing 10-minute song-and-punch introduction, the LEGO Batman Movie not only features a bevy of villains, known and obscure — Crazy Quilt and Killer Moth! —  the movie also treads into interesting meta territory. 

After Batman saves another day in Gotham City, he drops a bombshell on the Joker — the Dark Knight doesn’t think the Clown Prince of Crime is his greatest foe. 

Teary-eyed, the devastated supervillain escapes and begins work on a new plan to get Batman’s attention. 

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne finds himself torn against a potential love interest and a new commissioner who sees Batman as a problem.  Between bouts of love and anger at Commissioner Barbara Gordon’s new plans for the city, Bruce agrees to adopt the orphan Dick Grayson.