A Black Widow movie is a dumb idea. Here are some better ideas for characters Marvel REALLY needs to capitalize on before it's too late. Here is The Panel Biter's Top 10 Most Wanted Marvel Movies.
10. Valkyrie & The Liberators
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The problem with doing a Black Widow movie now is that while she is still in these movies, she's not the first character who comes to mind. If we really need a new female-led superhero movie with a character people know and love, now would be a great time to make a Valkyrie film. With the success of "Thor: Ragnarok" and it's breakout character-basically an all-new version of Valkyrie-it would be a great chance to continue the story of The Asgardians without doing "Thor 4" and breaking the magic number 3. Along with more Asgardian stuff, and having the lead be a tragic, yet humorous, female hero you can have the plot be about her rebuilding The Valkyrie with the female warriors of Earth. The Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Sif, Captain Marvel, Gamora, and, of course, Black Widow. And maybe Quake and Jessica Jones if Marvel Cinematic and Marvel TV can play nice. They can be The Liberators or The Secret Avengers or A-Force, but I prefer the former title. It would also be great to explore Valkyrie's grief over her former sisters by seeing her work with a new group of confident women, and see her take up the leadership she was destined for.
9. The Invaders
You know what genre Marvel hasn't touched? Modern War movies. The first Cap movie was a WWII film, and Iron Man fought terrorists, but what if we had a Marvel movie dealing with today's international affairs? After all, Marvel is the world outside our window, right? Enter The Invaders, a team usually set in the 1940's with Captain America, The Human Torch (the android one), and Namor The Sub-Mariner. But if we're going modern, I was thinking Bucky Barnes as The New Captain America-who is repaying his country by being a government sponsored superhero, Johnny Storm/The Human Torch-since we just got his rights back and maybe Johnny wants to branch outside his family as a solo hero, and Namor The Sub-Mariner-another character Marvel required who may fit better in a team than in his own film. Some terrorist group like The Serpent Society or The Ten Rings and The Mandarin have a new weapon that the US government wants destroyed so they send Bucky in there. Johnny sneaks along to gain some publicity and prove himself an actual hero and not just some showboat. And Namor gets involved because the tech being used for the weapon was stolen from Atlantis. Bam. You introduce a new character, a character in a new role, and 1/4 of your newly acquired superhero team!
8. Spider-Woman
Hmm. A movie about a female spy with horrible PTSD who's gimmick is spider-related? Oh, I know! Spider-Woman. Jessica Drew can get really complicated, but the short version was that she was given irradiated spider blood to save her from an illness (and give her powers) and when she escaped incubation she was brainwashed by HYDRA until SHIELD got a hold of her. What we have here is a chance to do a Black Widow story without focusing on Black Widow or titling it Black Widow or anything because all it has to be is a story about a superpowered agent who is loyal to HYDRA being put in the care of Black Widow. With HYDRA nearly destroyed and Jessica's original memories returning it would all be an instance of Black Widow helping Jessica uncover her old life and battle her programming. Maybe you bring in some ex-HYDRA super-agent too, but the main story is Spider-Woman becoming an agent of SHIELD, reforming from HYDRA, and Black Widow taking her under her wing. That way we get a satisfying conclusion to Black Widow's hero career, her successor, and the ability to feature a likable, sympathetic spider character unrelated to Spider-Man. Maybe Black Widow even tells Jess to look to Spider-Man as a positive role model or Spider-Man meets her on the street. Just a character study on an archetype character we've seen a lot of in Marvel.
7. She-Hulk
So let's pretend Universal Studios was a bit more open about the rights to all Hulk characters and talk about She-Hulk. First of all: you can use The Leader and The Abomination, two villains set-up in "The Incredible Hulk" and never used. You can have a depowered Bruce Banner be a main character showing up on his lawyer cousin Jennifer Walter's doorstep looking for legal help. Now that Bruce is depowered (I imagine The Hulk will be tuckered out after Thanos) a bunch of companies are trying to sue Bruce and get him put in jail and he doesn't think Stark lawyers will help him. But Jen is shot by anti-Hulk protesters and given Bruce's blood in a blood transfusion resulting in her becoming She-Hulk. Now she has to focus on helping Bruce legally while controlling her hulking rage against the press, fighting Abomination (who is working for The Leader, who in turn is "leading" the general public into getting Bruce the electric chair), AND resist the urge to strangle her cousin. Why? Because the day Bruce finally decides to connect with his old friend/cousin it is the day he needs legal help. It's like when you uncle calls you just to ask for help moving a bed. This would be another chance to put Mark Ruffalo in the front, let his dramatic character acting do the work. Introducing a strong female character who can be scantily clad AND powerful, break the forth wall AND have legitimate family issues, and have her fight villains we've never seen since their debut. It would be an excellent use of Hulk rights!
6. Captain Britain
The Captain Britain Corps are like the Green Lantern Corps of the Multiverse. The best way of exploring Marvel's various universes and possibilities, tying in old Marvel movies unrelated to the current MCU like those mid-2000's Spider-Man movies or that 80's Howard The Duck film. And if that next Green Lantern movie is actually a buddy cop, this can be too! Brian Braddock (brother of The X-Men's Psylocke) is a veteran Captain Britain, chosen to watch over the multidimensional threats coming to our world is heading towards retirement and has chosen a fellow brit named Kelsey Kirkland who was a police officer to be his apprentice. This leads to some wacky adventures across the multiverse, introducing a dimension-jumping villain like Mad Jim Jaspers, and it allows this new female character to take the reigns as the new Captain Britain. There is so much lore with Captain Britain it's crazy. He has a parallel universe counterpart who's evil, The Corps is ran by Merlin-yes, that Merlin-who's daughter Meggan is Brian's lover, every Captain must choose an Amulet of Right or a Sword of Might and Brian chose the amulet and Kelsey chose the sword, that way you can see the advantages and disadvantages of each weapon. Not to mention all the magic relating back to Doctor Strange, Brian's connection to The X-Men, and just having a film starring British actors without fake American accents. Also, THE MULTIVERSE. You can literally do anything! HYDRA Captain America, a world where everyone has an Iron Man armor, a world where Hulk became a king! Anything and it will sell!
5. The Black Knight
Another chance at a British hero. The modern version of The Black Knight is some white dude named Dane, but the first Black Knight, Sir Percy, lived in the Dark Ages. A Medieval Marvel movies sounds appealing to me, for some reason. Like, Game of Thrones but in Marvel. Have Percy be this snivelling commoner who is destined to pluck The Ebony Blade (basically Excalibur, but with a curse) and defeat the dragon (Fin Fang Foom?) destroying the land of Camelot. Throw in Merlin as the Sorcerer Supreme, some fun fantasy characters like an orc and some bards who follow Percy around (Jack Black and Kyle Glass, preferably), and show a story about a weak child becoming a powerful knight! The Ebony Blade corrupts the mind of whoever wields it so that would be an interesting character struggle. If he uses the blade to fight the dragon and it's brainwashed followers it will drive him insane, but the longer he doesn't wield it the harder the war becomes. Percy must either give up his sanity or his family, his friends, and his home. A film that hits the fantasy notch Marvel only rarely touches upon, and featuring a character who-may die by the end-but have a lineage of characters leading into the present day. By the time a third movie comes along his descendant could be a fat nerd who just happens to play DnD or something! A fun, epic, fantasy-based hero's story of an impossible battle being surprisingly won!
4. Herc & Cho
A road trip movie about the smartest kid on Earth and the strongest Demigod around. Hercules and Amadeus Cho are best friends in the comics, one being an orphan whose parents died because his genius got out, and the other was the world's first hero, but was tricking into killing his family. In this film we'd see the characters meet, bond, and travel across the country to get to Avengers HQ and ask for their help finding the people who killed Cho's parents. And they find a dog and name him Kirby. They are followed by those men who hunted Cho down, and their various superpowered minions like Titania and Volcana. Again, this story is about the relationship between two very different people. Herc doesn't believe Cho is useful in battle and Cho doesn't even believe in Gods. By the end they'd both be proven wrong. There isn't too much more to the concept, but the personalities of each character really hold the plot together. Hercules is the typical fight, drink, and sex kind of hero and Cho is calculated, immature, and witty. Maybe Herc wants to join The Avengers to prove his worth as a hero and be invited back into Olympus, and Cho wants to get vengeance for his parents. But both have to learn to let go and move on with their lives, no matter how hard it is. Herc and Cho aren't typical heroes, they're lost souls who need each other to find their hidden potential. Herc lost a son, Cho lost a father, but they found each other.
3. The Midnight Sons
The Midnight Sons is Marvel's premier Paranormal team. And if they can successfully flesh out an entire corner of the Marvel Universe with a "Guardians of The Galaxy" film, the same can be done with these characters. It's also a good chance to include characters considered for Netflix series that you can't do anymore. So I'm thinking Blade The Vampire Slayer, Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider, Daimon Hellstrom and his sister Satana, and Brother Voodoo, an eccentric sorcerer who summons them all together in search of The Darkhold, an evil, magical book containing dark magic. But they are dogged by the demon Blackheart, the monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and must conquer their own rivalries to seal the book away forever. Robbie is the newby, Blade is the cool guy, Daimon is your gentlemen with a demonic background, Satana is your flirt, and Brother Voodoo is the weirdo. And maybe they run into Man-Thing real quick. This film would give us a peek at the darker side of magic in the MCU, filled with demons and blood and sacrifices. And, again, if Marvel TV can't give Marvel Studios the new Ghost Rider we can bring Johnny Blaze back in, powers or not he would be a welcomed replacement.
2. The Champions
Champions is one of the best titles going out right now, it's driven, it's timely, it's fun and it features a lot of cool characters. Problem is with making it a movie is the lack of characters available. We can't use The Totally Awesome Hulk because Amadeus isn't around yet, Viv Vision isn't around because The Vision is-and should stay-a supporting character, Miles Morales isn't the main Spider-Man, and Nova, well, we'll talk about Nova later. So if we were to make this team movie the cast would probably be Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel and some characters from Young Avengers. Eli Bradley's grandfather was supposed to be the second Captain America after Steve Rogers "died", but the serum didn't work on him. Two generations later and Eli discovers powers similar to Captain America and is chosen by The Avengers to be on their Young Avengers program as The Patriot. The Hulkling is the son of the original Captain Marvel and a Skrull princess, he was sent to Earth to keep him away from both the Kree and The Skrull and their laws against his heritage. On Earth he tries to blend in, but is inspired by The Hulk's good-over-bad nature to be a hero. Wiccan, well, he can't really be Scarlet Witch's son, but maybe he's a natural magic user who wants to take Doctor Strange's place one day. Oh, and he and Hulking are gay by the way. And by this point Scott Lang's daughter would be maybe twelve or thirteen, be exposed to Pym Particles and become the sidekick to her father, Stature. So we got Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Patriot, Wiccan, Hulking, and Stature. And The Vision could babysit the team. And it's a mix of Champion's understanding of today's kids, Young Avenger's kind of characters, and Avengers Academy presentation of heroes-in-training. They could be sent on rescue missions on behalf of The Avengers or fight The Sinister Six with Spider-Man, blending teen drama with superhero adventures.
1. Nova
Yet again another chance for Marvel to show us a different side to an established corner of the MCU, Nova is our chance at seeing a darker side of the cosmos. With so many cosmic beings in Marvel's hands again we can see The Silver Surfer and Galactus, The Badoon, and The Shi'ar all in this film. Nova could be a classic crime story focusing on a human from Earth now a hardened officer of The Nova Corps. We can see his rise through the ranks as he uncovers a corrupt unit of Novas from the inside working the likes of Annihilus and his Negative Zone army. Just do "Annihilation" and focus on Richard Rider, maybe through Cosmo The Space Dog and Nova's love interest Gamora in there too. Cameos from The Guardians and Thanos, exploring The Nova Corps and their customs and rules. Rider doesn't have to be the disjointed newby on the unit, just the kind of loose cannon cop who doesn't play by the rules. Set him with a funny side character like Korg or John C. Riley and you have a traditional cop film set in the wild world of space. Introduce alien races, alien places, alien concepts like space drugs or something. Show us why The Nova Corps matter, show us the side of space Guardians didn't. The Guardians are basically mercenaries, while The Nova Corps are police sent to deal with actual cosmic threats and having Rider be our guide through the way policing works out in space would add another layer to Marvel's complex universe. More than anything this movie would carry the torch Guardians of The Galaxy has to pass on, and change things by focusing on one main character and showing a more uniform part of Marvel cosmic.
Thanks for reading!
What character do you want to see get a movie? Comment below!
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