GregHowley.com

I've taken a lot of interest in all the Marvel news over the past couple months. Although I don't read comics, I've learned a good amount about the storylines and characters through Wikipedia, and I've listened to a lot of Adam Warrock music about various Marvel characters, which has spurred my interest.

The big news last week was that Spider-man was being added to the Marvel cinematic universe. Obviously, he's been part of the universe in the comic world forever, but following a bankruptcy in the 1990s, Marvel licensed its characters' movie rights as individuals or groups. Sony now has Spider-man, and 20th Century Fox has The X-Men and the Fantastic Four. There had also previously been licensing deals on Daredevil, Blade, and Punisher, but those characters have now reverted to Marvel.

Now, Sony has made a deal with Marvel wherein Sony retains the rights to Spider-man, but the character can appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Interestingly, when Sony makes another Spider-man movie, other Marvel characters may appear in it.

In the comic book, the Civil War storyline had introduced the issue of superhuman registration. It pitted Captain America and Iron Man against each other, each leading opposing factions - one pro-registration, and the other anti-registration. Caught in the middle, in a pivotal role, was Spider-man. Originally, as I understand it, the script for the upcoming movie Captain America: Civil War was going to take the position originally occupied by Spider-man and fill it with The Black Panther. But now that Spider-man is actually available, many fans are hoping that the movie will revert to the original story and use Spider-man.

In my mind, this is good for a number of reasons. Primarily, since it's a Captain America movie, we won't see the Spider-man origin story again. I think we've seen Uncle Ben get shot enough times. The only down side is that The Black Panther would be getting a bit of a demotion in the re-scripting. With his raison d'etre obviated by Spider-man's emergence, it could easily be said that he's entirely superfluous in the film. And that's bad for diversity. But speaking of diversity, what are the chances they'll eschew the Peter Parker Spider-man entirely and go with Miles Morales? Low, I suppose.

For most fans, myself included, the only real exposure we've had to superhuman registration storylines prior to this will have been the Mutant Registration Act from the X-Men movies. And that storyline portrayed the vilification of those who wanted Mutants to have to register with the guvmint. I've never read the Civil War books, but my understanding is that the story is more nuanced, putting forth legitimate and reasonable points that make the notion of superhuman registration a more sympathetic position. If it's presented as clear-cut that superhuman registration is evil, then Tony Stark becomes an outright villain. I hope that Marvel doesn't do that.

In the Civil War comic, the event that spurred public demand for a superhuman registration act was an incident in Stamford, Connecticut where The New Warriors were battling super-villains on a reality TV show, and the whole thing ended with a ton of civilian deaths. While it would be cool if they did this in the movie, because we'd get to see Speedball, I imagine that they'll use a Hulk rampage as the precipitating incident. Probably the big Hulk vs Hulkbuster fight from Avengers 2.

But even if we don't see Speedball and The New Warriors, a movie where superhumans are forced to register will require more superhumans that we've seen previously to appear in the film. So who? The Wasp? Dazzler? We'll certainly see The Winter Soldier appear here on the anti-registration side. I can't wait.

Marvel Studios has delayed a number of their films to account for a new (Sony) Spider-man movie in summer 2017. Having the studios work together is (I think) going to be best for everyone. Even though I'm sad to have to wait longer for Captain Marvel. We're now getting Thor: Ragnarok in 2017. I thought the last Thor film was a bit weak, so I'm not hugely excited about this. The rest are in 2018 (Infinity War Part 1, Black Panther, and then Captain Marvel) and in 2019 (Infinity War Part 2 and Inhumans)

So now for more speculation: What are the chances we'll see Dr. Strange make an appearance in the after-credit scene in Age of Ultron? Given the Sony/Marvel deal, how long before Fox jumps into a similar deal so that we can have Wolverine or The Human Torch appear in Infinity War?