2010’s the year for new superheroes on screen, I do declare. And I declare, most emphatically. THE CAPE is flapping, NO ORDINARY FAMILY’s in residence and, soon, MEGAMIND’s going to be kept in the thoughts of many. If you haven’t heard of that last one, it’s a CG cartoon coming this November from the folks who brought you SHREK and MADAGASCAR. Will Ferrell’s voicing Megamind, a woefully inept supervillain who accidentally kills his nemesis, the superhero Metro Man (Brad Pitt), after years of blundering attempts. While Megamind initially relishes in his victory, he soon grows bored without a hero to fight and schemes to actually create a new one just to keep himself busy.
This movie’s been flying under some radars. I think I’d only read about once in the trades before the full trailer for it finally debuted recently (and you can see that below.) I’m not usually a fan of Ferrell, myself, but this looks pretty funny - - a lighthearted superhero romp in the vein of the INCREDIBLES. What’s maybe more interesting to comics fans is that this looks like it’s riffing on Brainiac, of all characters, in the same way that the INCREDIBLES riffed on the FANTASTIC FOUR. Metro Man’s clearly a take-off on Supes and if you changed Megamind’s skin color from blue to green, he might seem a little more familiar. The trailer even shows his infant self escaping from a doomed planet alongside an infant Metro Man, which is a bit like how Brainiac started off as Kryptonian super-computer in some continuities. == TEASER ==
This isn’t a knock-on the movie, at all. In fact, it reminds me in a good way of what Alan Moore did with Supreme in the 90s - - using analogs to spin tales you couldn’t tell with the regular characters. In this case, it’d be interesting to do a story about what Braniac does with himself after he finally kills Superman, but you can’t actually do that in the main continuity, can you?
Anyway, check out the trailer below and see if you agree with me. I’d also be curious if anybody’s got any favorites that have similarly employed analogs for "impossible" scenarios like WATCHMEN or PLANETARY.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.