Life Imitates Art- Captain America & Spiderman

Yesterday the pop arts interwebs were overrun by these new images representing the expected Summer blockbusters of the next two years- Captain America and Spiderman. As usual, most forums were blasting with raves and rants on both new costumes (the Cap costume shown prior was during his WWII days.) Be it of Cap shouldn't having those lame wings, or Spidey on crack?! What isn't often referenced is that both films show a direct linkage to the Ulitmate line of Marvel comics-- that are modernized, contemporary remixes on the iconic heroes.

As you can see with the ill cover from Adi Granov, the likeness of both fatigues are uncanny. It almost seems questionable as to whether it was the concept art from the film is what changed Cap's look in the Ultimate line of books. Not likely being that the Millar/Hitch Ulitmate's book that first highlighted this iteration of Cap was back in 2002.

And the same connection to the Spiderman film is equally visible with the reboot of the franchise taking us back to the world of awkward, teen angst or back to High School, just like the Brian Michael Bendis classic.

In each case, I say it works being that the movie audience of today has so many more needs to be fulfilled from a cinematic and technology standpoint that subtle retooling of a script (the Ultimate comics) helps with the budget and keeps the feel of the film true to hardcore fans and the mainstream.

One cool aspect to the Disney/Marvel films of being wrapped in an interwoven Universe and having guest appearances, will not be in play with the new Spiderman film being it is a Sony/Columbia product. Bummers as it would have been neat seeing a teenage Spidey getting pointers from Cap or Iron-Man on the big screen. Ah, we have the comics for that afterall!

Finally, I think we can all agree that times would be very different today if say the world of social media existed back in the 70's. Aren't we happy that images like these aren't in the forefront of the wire and forum threads!! Thank goodness for CG to avoid the horrid site of super-cameltoe and cheesy spandex!