One element that has so far been missing from every major film derived from a comic book is the sense that the titular hero shares his world with a whole bunch of other superheroes. For example, Spider-Man-the-film gave no hint that Spider-Man-the-character was only one of a vast pantheon of characters who all live in the same world. Superhero movies to date have all been entirely self-contained and, so far as the novice viewer can tell, each tells of the only super-powered person on the planet.
That’s not how it is in the comics medium, where the world is lousy with super-powered people and creatures, and any character who is owned by a particular publisher is likely to show up in any other character’s book at some point. This is especially true in the case of the so-called Marvel Universe, the shared setting of all the titles published by Marvel Comics, so it is somewhat surprising that all the films based on Marvel titles — and that would be most of the superhero flicks of the last ten years or so, including X-Men, Daredevil, The Hulk, Ghost Rider, and The Fantastic Four — have not so far included any crossovers between them. (Actually, I guess it’s not that surprising, since crossovers would be meaningless — if not actually confusing — for the average viewer who sees only one of these films a year and doesn’t know anything about comics.)
But now, in a summer that’s going to see two major movie releases based on Marvel titles, it looks like the powers that be are going to throw in the sort of thing that comics fans have enjoyed for years: according to this blog, Robert Downey, Jr., who is playing the title role in the much-anticipated Iron Man, will have a cameo appearance in The Incredible Hulk. There is also some rumbling that another big name who is supposed to star in another upcoming Marvel-licensed flick — the rumor mill says that it will be Samuel L. Jackson playing the character Nick Fury — will appear briefly in Iron Man.
I think this brilliant, a nice gesture to comics fans and a good marketing ploy to promote the other movies based on the same universe that will be released around the same time. Now, if they could just somehow get all the movies to meet the same standard of quality…
Given that most of the Marvel movies, take a great amount of liberties with comic book storylines(oh how would I wish for a fight between Logan and Sabertooth), it’s no surprize there are no crossovers.
That’s a good point. I think the risk of confusing casual viewers is probably a big issue too, and maybe even licensing concerns are involved. I don’t know how the deals for these movies work, but perhaps the film studios are only allowed to use (or only willing to pay for, which seems more likely) certain characters — and a certain number of characters — per movie.