By Pat French
Last night (4/24) Variety broke the story that actor Ray Fisher has just been cast in Batman Vs. Superman (or Superman into Darkness, or whatever the hell they’re calling it) to play the part of Victor Stone. Vic Stone (for those of you uninitiated) is a superhero named Cyborg. He is, as you might imagine, part man/part machine. Answering all your questions at once: yes, this is the same character as in Teen Titans/Teen Titans Go; Yes, this is the same character as in Smallville; Yes, this is a build-up towards a Justice League film; and no, I do not think he will be kicking ass in this particular feature. They have already cast a couple of football players, so I imagine he will be in the film in that capacity and possibly get hurt to the point of needing cybernetics by the end.
As cool as it is to see DC bringing a little ethnic diversity to their film world, this is yet ANOTHER character being shoehorned into the Man of Steel sequel. Remember that? Remember when this was just going to be a Superman movie? I’m just waiting for them to change the title to Justice League: Origins at this point. So far we have Superman, Lois Lane, Batfleck, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, whoever the hell Holly Hunter is playing (odds are someone big though, right?) and now Cyborg all crowding for screentime. Is it starting to look like the Avengers? No it is not. It’s starting to look like Iron Man 2. Which is a double-edged sword.
While Iron Man 2 did accomplish a fair degree of world-building, it absolutely sticks out as the rottenest apple in the Marvel bunch. If you offered me a Marvel Box Set and told me that IM2 was lost, I’d be ok with that. The film is a disjointed mess, with characters showing up just for the sake of being there (Nick Fury, Coulson, etc). As a result, the actual villain has very little screen time and practically no character. Go on, tell me what we learned about Ivan Vanko after the opening credits.
In the long run, however, IM2 did accomplish a lot of set up for Marvel’s future projects. The movie references Captain America (And Agent Coulson’s man-crush) very briefly. It introduces us to Black Widow and gives Nick Fury a little more time to establish himself. Coulson’s subplot sets up Thor as well as aspects of Agents of SHIELD. Howard Stark and the Stark Expo are revisited in Captain America: The First Avenger. Garry Shandling’s Senator Stern is introduced, which sets up a big part of The Winter Soldier. And also, probably most obviously, there is a lot of exposition about the Avengers Initiative.
So there’s good and bad from having a movie like this. It was certainly a disappointment as a follow-up to the first film. But it laid the groundwork for all the films that followed it. I guess you could call it a proverbial egg. Which makes the Avengers an omelet. A sweet. Delicious. Omelet.
There’s two more years before we know exactly how Batman Vs Superman shakes out, so my comparison to Iron Man 2 is all conjecture at this point. Could be I’m totally wrong and the movie will have incredible pacing and plotting. Could be this is the first Comic book movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Could be that Batman and Superman are so utterly kick-ass that they bring about world peace.
Yeah, I’m not holding my breath though…