George R.R. Martin is a self-proclaimed “old — VERY old — Marvel fanboy” and was even once a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. In a recent blog post, the Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones scribe elucidates on his Marvel affinity, particularly his fondness for Ant-Man, dropping knowledge on the character and his “rival itty-bitty hero over at DC, the Atom.” After seeing Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man, which stars the ineffably wonderful Paul Rudd, Martin had to express his glee at the film’s treatment of the tiny superhero:
There’s a lot of action too, but not so much that it overwhelms the plot and characters, which was my problem with the last AVENGERS film… and the one before it, to think of it. A superhero movie needs a fair share of smashing and bashing and stuff blowing up, of course, but IMNSHO that stuff works best when it is happening to people we actually know and care about, and if you jam in too many characters and don’t take time to develop any of them properly, well…
But Martin does have a few issues with the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Quibbles? Yeah, a few. Where was the Wasp? We got a few glimpses, and a set up for the next film. But I wanted more Wasp, and I loved the old original Hank/ Janet dynamic (before they got to the wife-beating stuff). Also, while Yellowjacket makes a decent villain here (in the comics, of course, he was actually one of Hank’s later identities, after Giant-Man and Goliath), I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero. The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn. I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting).
And, for the record, he says the best Marvel movie is Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which is the correct answer.
