Marvel Hulk Smashes the Competition with 'The Avengers'

This week is a busy one for comic book movies. With The Avengers opening up today, all the attention has been on Marvel Comics. But, not to be outdone, DC Comics and Warner Bros. released a new trailer to The Dark Knight Rises. On top of that, it is Free Comic Book Day on Saturday. The new trailer for the next Batman movie is two minutes of pure excitement for fans of the Christopher Nolan trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises will be the last in the Nolan trilogy, and by judging from how the stakes were continuously raised on Gotham City in his first two films, this one should be a beautiful ending to Bruce Wayne’s Batman. That is, until someone else gets a hold of the cash cow franchise.[Read tt stern-enzi's take on The Avengers here.] Despite releasing the trailer, DC is taking a back seat to Marvel. For years Marvel has had better movies than DC, with the exception of Nolan’s Batman, and recently the former has had a string of successful hits. This past year along saw Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, two widely popular characters that Marvel needed to establish before going ahead with The Avengers. DC has tried to branch out from Batman and Superman, but most of their efforts have resulted in ridiculed movies. The last Superman movie was terrible, but a new one is still in the works. Last year Green Lantern came out to mixed emotions from fans. Ryan Reynolds was surprisingly good; it was everything else that fell short in the movie. Weak villains and missed opportunities were the downfall of Green Lantern, but that is a whole other story. I will say that it was a decent attempt to start the push toward a Justice League movie. In a way, Marvel wins the movie race because they are the first to release a movie based on their group of high profile characters. According to MovieTickets.com the pre-sale ticket numbers suggest that this movie is going to be bigger than the two Iron Man movies, Thor and Captain America. With sequels in line for the Captain, Thor and Iron Man, Marvel is going to be sitting pretty for the next few years. This summer is going to be a great one for comic book fans. Not only is The Avengers opening up the summer blockbuster season, but The Dark Knight Rises releases July 20 and The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3. The third Men in Black movie comes out in a few weeks on May 25.