The B Team Heroes (Warning: Quite Geeky)

What Matt Yglesias said in regards to so-called "second-tier" superheroes. Yglesias' post comes in response to this article by John Anderson in the Washington Post the Iron Man movie. It just so happens that some of the most compelling and identifiable superheroes occupy the "second-tier." These characters, in my opinion, are ripe for hit movies. Superheroes like Ant-Man, Green Lantern, Captain America, and Green Arrow are incredibly human, and fallible characters that would translate well to the big screen if the right people (not Michael Bay/Brett Ratner/McG) got behind the project. A lot of people that would normally not give a superhero movie the time of day were very impressed by Batman Begins and Iron Man. Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark, despite their billionaire status, possess a number of shortcomings and character flaws common to almost all of us, and these limitations manifest themselves as key themes and as a result their respective stories are greatly enhanced. I mean dear God, did you see Batman Begins? Call me pathetic, but I walked out of that movie a slightly different person than I walked in! I'm looking forward to the Wolverine movie that's coming out next year. I wish I could say the same for the Silver Surfer (pictured above) but if it's a spin-off of the atrocious and I mean ATROCIOUS Fantastic Four moives, then it will surely be horrible. The fact remains, as Yglesias pointed out, there are millions of people out there (mostly single, shy, and male) that will gladly shell out the $10 to see movies made about their heroes. One can only hope that the success of (the actually not so obscure) Iron Man on the big screen will lead to more quality movies about focusing on "second-tier" comic characters.

UPDATE: It looks like my hopes have been answered!

Primary Wrap Up

Tom Edsall has got a good write up of last night's results over at HuffPost. Barack Obama won a huge 15-point victory in North Carolina and narrowly lost Indiana by less than 2-points. To make a long story short: he exceeded expectations. I also thought that his speech last night in NC was much better than his Pennslyvania concescion speech in Indiana a few weeks ago. Obama was on message and he got in a few good zingers at McCain. The crowd seemed electrified by his speech, like they used to be back in January and February, hopefully this means his once again ensnared the momentum that marked his early candidacy.

Well, I'm a broken record when it comes to my commentary on Hillary Clinton, but it's time for her to drop out. She's lost any momentum she once had and her argument for the superdelegates was pretty much negated last night. She has also reportedly lent another $6.4 million to her campaign. It's clear that the end is near for her campaign. It's unfortunate that her run is most likely going to end on such a negative note, but when you really think about it, you end a campaign because you experience a defeat, these things rarely end positively.

Also, to my amusement, Sam Stein reports that St. John had a rough night. He won majorities in North Carolina and Indiana but Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul were able to pick up a combined 20% of the Republican vote in each state. This is notable because only Paul is still in the race. His Maverickness will need some crazy straight talk to maverick his way out of that debacle.