This one's for the geeks

Okay, as often happens to me, my mind has become recently stuck on something that is completely useless to me. Here's where I get it all out.

What is today's attention-consuming question? It is this: What movies should Disney be making out of Marvel comics characters?

I was thinking about this the other day and the answer was obvious: Luke Cage.

So obvious, in fact, that they're already doing it. Luke Cage: The Movie is due out in 2011.

Luke Cage, you see, is Marvel's best black character, hands down.

Marvel's Black Panther, although he has a great name, is the king of his own ridiculously-technologically-advanced nation in vaguest Africa. It's possible that not every African-American youth would sympathize with the character sufficiently to shell out ten bucks to see a movie about the guy.

Marvel's Falcon, who does not have a great name, is the Aquaman of the Marvel universe. He flies. He talks to birds. It's not that different from He swims. He talks to fish.

Other attempts to create a black character, such as Night Thrasher, have generally failed.

Somehow, with Luke Cage back in the 70's, Marvel got it right. Luke Cage was an inner city youth who was framed for a crime he didn't commit. Consigned to the American penal system by a skeptical justice system, Cage volunteered for a dangerous experiment in exchange for early parole. The experiment made him very strong and gave him unbreakable skin. Freed, he first capitalizes on his abilities, marketing himself as a Hero for Hire. Later he dedicates himself to cleaning up his neighborhood, at which he succeeds. It's only a few blocks of New York City, but thanks to Luke Cage there are a few blocks of New York City that are completely free of drug dealers and their associated ills.

Here's the thing: If Disney has any vision about really doing something with Marvel's properties then they need to do one simple thing: They need to put the character of Jessica Jones somewhere in this movie.

Jessica Jones is a character who has been retconned into the Marvel universe, in the same way that Forrest Gump was retconned into ours (If you don't know what retcon means, or only know it from Torchwood, then you're reading the wrong blog). She didn't exist until the 21st century, but her exploits theoretically began in the early 80's.

She's a failed super-hero. She received super powers as a teenager in an almost stereotypical origin involving a canister of radioactive waste. She's strong. She can fly. So she dons (in the early 80's) a skimpy, strapless bodystocking and, using the name Jewel and coloring her hair bubblegum pink, fights crime.

For reasons she is hesitant to share, she comes to believe she is not meant to be a super-hero. She quits for a while, but tries again for about a week in the late 80's - comics' Dark Age - as a darker version of herself called Knightress. During that week she meets Luke Cage and gives up, again, the super-hero racket.

She becomes a private detective. She's good at it.

As a private detective she accidentally discovers Captain America's secret identity and has to decide what to do with this information. Alongside Luke Cage, with whom she has had a fling, she does some bodyguard work for Daredevil / Matt Murdock. She is hired by J. Jonah Jameson to discover Spiderman's secret identity. She dates, briefly, Scott Lang who, as Ant-Man, is a member of the Avengers.

She discovers she is pregnant by Luke Cage. The two decide to have the baby together.

This is a big deal. The character of Luke Cage in the 21st century publications of Marvel Comics is defined by the fact that he's going to have, and later has, a daughter. Suddenly he needs to act like a grown up. But here's the thing: Luke doesn't give in to The Man (even when The Man is Tony Stark) just because he needs to provide for his family. Luke Cage becomes a mensch. He's willing to go to jail for what's right, although he'll fight like hell to stay out of jail, rather than submit himself to the American justice system again, if he can avoid it. He doesn't always take the easy way. He does the right thing, as an example for his kid, even when it's the hard thing.

The point is that Luke Cage ends up being a great role model. And it's all for his kid.

Let's get back to business, though. Let's talk about what Disney needs to do. At this point they've developed a couple of Iron Man movies. They're working on Captain America and Luke Cage. They're also working on an Avengers movie. Spiderman, Daredevil, and Wolverine have been done. The Black Widow is appearing now in Iron Man 2.

Eventually, though, Disney is going to want to build some synergies between the current comic books and the movies. The problem is that Disney is trying to build a franchise around the classic Avengers - Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man - at a time when the classic Avengers team has been largely destroyed in the comics.

Currently there are multiple sets of Avengers in the comics, but there are only two sets of Avengers that matter: The Ultimates, and the New Avengers.

At this point I'm going to assume that if you're still reading this then you have some passing familiarity with current comics' lore and know that I'm now talking about two different universes of characters.

There's the mainstream universe, in which the classic Avengers were thoroughly destroyed a few years ago. A new team of more streetwise Avengers, consisting of Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Daredevil (briefly), Wolverine and Spiderwoman has formed in their place. If you'll look back over that list you'll notice that all but one of those characters has either had a movie come out recently, or has one scheduled to come out next year.

Then there's the Ultimate Universe, in which the Avengers are a supergroup called the Ultimates that has been formed under the command of Nick Fury, who in this universe is modeled after Samuel L. Jackson. That supergroup consists of Fury himself, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man (sort of) and Hawkeye.

If you've been paying any kind of attention at all then you have noticed that Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is going to be the catalyst of the Avengers movie.

Basically, Disney is trying to synthesize these universes into some decent movies.

The problem is that the classic Avengers are a bunch of white guys from the middle of the 20th century, and they're really hard to update. Iron Man kind of works. He's basically What If Steve Jobs Made Weapons? How do you update Thor, though? Or Captain America? Or Ant-Man?

The Avengers movie really needs to be about Nick Fury assembling a team of powerful individuals in his one-man war against terror, but ultimately realizing that these are (with the exception of Captain America) the Wrong Guys. He needs soldiers and what he has are heroes. The movie ends with him having assembled his team of Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and possibly Thor. They've defeated a bad guy who wanted to rule the world - possibly Kang the Conqueror - but Nick Fury really needs a different team to do dirtier work in the name of America and America alone.

The Luke Cage movie needs to be made alongside the Avengers, but be completely unrelated. It establishes that Luke Cage is willing to get his hands a little dirty in order to do what must be done.

Then there needs to be a second Avengers movie called Avengers: Secret War. This will basically be a faithful adaptation of Marvel's Secret War miniseries from 2004-2005. It's the story of how Nick Fury uses Captain America, Daredevil, the Black Widow (appearing now in Iron Man 2!), Luke Cage, and Wolverine in a preemptive strike against a terrorist rogue nation, then removes from the heroes any memory of their having done so. One year later the Avengers and these Secret Warriors are attacked in retaliation, but unaware of why.

This is what destroys the classic Avengers in the movie universe. It's not Avengers: Disassembled. It's Secret War. Nick Fury is very publicly associated with the Avengers in the movies, as he is in the Ultimate universe. When he undertakes his Secret War then he turns the heroes against him, leading the Avengers to disband. Also the Avengers headquarters are destroyed in the retaliatory strike made by the terrorist rogue nation. Scott Lang, Ant-Man, is killed. If there's a Hawkeye then he's killed too.

The next movie is New Avengers: Breakout. Many of the same Secret Warriors come back together when a massive prison-break occurs. After responding to the prison break and preventing many super-criminals from escaping, Captain America encourages the heroes (himself, Iron Man, Spiderman, Luke Cage, possibly Daredevil, and - replacing Spiderwoman - Black Widow) to stay together in order to round up the few who did escape. These New Avengers aren't working for the government. They're doing what needs to be done, on their own.

That's maybe the first half-hour of the movie. The rest is the New Avengers confronting a conspiracy involving the escaped criminals and the remainder of Nick Fury's organization. The whole thing culminates with Iron Man / Tony Stark taking over the organization in question. The good guys win.

Or do they? On to the next movie in the franchise, Avengers: Civil War. Iron Man / Tony Stark is in favor of all superhumans registering with the government and working for it under his authority. Captain America and Luke Cage see things differently. Things Fall Apart. It is revealed that all appears to be going horribly wrong under the direction of the Black Widow, who turns out to be an alien impostor. In order to make a decent movie we have to simplify the Secret Invasion storyline and have the Avengers get back together with the real Black Widow and a returned Nick Fury on the right side of the fight, united against the aliens. They defeat the threat, but are distrustful of each other and concerned about how their united strength was misused. Although victorious, they disband. Movie ends.

You'll notice I'm leaving Wolverine out of all the New Avengers stuff. He can probably be taken out of any Secret War movie as well. I really want to keep the X-men franchise separate from the Nick Fury / Avengers franchise. For similar reasons Spiderman could also be removed from all things Avengers.

Individual movies pick back up:

A contemporary Captain America movie. Captain America, finally on his own, is a man out of time. A Rip Van Winkle. A patriotic and inspiring Blast From The Past, but not everyone approves of his brand of patriotism. A powerful individual murders Cap's girlfriend in the process of an attempted smear campaign. Cap brings the bad guy to justice. This is all an homage to the first few issues of Jessica Jones' first comic book appearance.

Luke Cage 2. Cage cleans up his neighborhood. On his own. He begins a relationship with Jessica Jones, if he hasn't already. The movie centers around trying to balance responsibility to his family and to his neighborhood. He needs to do the right thing for his family, but he also needs to do the right thing for everyone else in order to be someone his (as yet unborn) daughter can be proud of.

Nick Fury and The Black Widow, Nick helps the Widow try to rebuild the life an impostor was living in her place.

Daredevil 2. Daredevil is outed to the media as Matt Murdock. (In promotional webisodes, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones pretend to be Matt Murdock's bodyguards. Their relationship advances.) Murdock successfully settles out of court when he convinces the media's source to deny the story.

Jessica Jones, pregnant, gets a job at the Daily Bugle, working for J. Jonah Jameson. She investigates a group of kids trying to fill the void left by the disbanded Avengers. These Young Avengers are led by Iron Lad, a kid who claims to be destined to become the time-traveling supervillain Kang the Conqueror. (If Kang hasn't already been used in an Avengers movie then it could be revealed that he's come back too soon and no one has ever heard of Kang the Conqueror. That adds to the confusion.) The deceased Ant-Man's daughter is one of the Young Avengers, as is the African-American Patriot, an shape-shifting alien defector from the recently attempted invasion, and a debutante taking on the mantle of Hawkeye. These Young Avengers are brought into conflict with an elder version of Kang and YOUNGER versions of Iron Man and Captain America and others whom the elder Kang has taken out of time in order to force his younger self to get back on track. This causes instability to the time stream. Jessica discovers she's no longer pregnant as a result of the time-stream changes and freaks out. The young Kang goes back to his own time in order to set things right. When he does, his sentient Armor, JARVIS, changes its name to VISION and joins the team. Jessica, pregnant again, has a story for the Bugle that it probably can't print.

Whew.

Okay, looking back at this ridiculous post I seem to have pitched 10 separate movies. They all, in one way or another, pay homage to the recent and classic history of the characters while not being married to that history.

Jessica Jones can serve as a linchpin that ties everything together. I see her as having a series of live-action, advertising-supported web-based serials in which she intersects with each movie.

This post is all about the Avengers and related properties. It's also about Brian Michael Bendis. He's been the moving force behind all of these characters for the last several years, with the exception of the Young Avengers. It seems to me that since Bendis has revitalized the characters in the comics then some of his plot-lines should be adapted to the films.

There are other Marvel properties that can be adapted to film, of course. I've got some ideas. Mostly I want to keep the Marvel movie universe segmented. The Fantastic Four, the X-men, the Avengers, the Hulk, Spiderman, Power Pack, and the Runaways (just to name a few) should never intersect with each other (although Nick Fury and Jessica Jones can wander through the background as necessary).

Okay geeks-who-made-it-all-the-way-through-the-post. What do you think? Think there's an Avengers movie (or ten) in here somewhere?