George R.R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire books that A Game of Thrones is based on, has written up an interesting review of Marvel’s newest hit movie Ant-Man. While Martin “loved it” overall, he did point out something that he finds a little troubling in most Marvel movies he sees: Namely, the villains.
READ OUR ANT-MAN REVIEW: Marvel’s most perfectly sized story in years
Martin, of course, has written some of the best villains in modern fantasy fiction, including Tywin Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Bolton and more. So when it comes to doing compelling (and detestable) villains, he knows what he’s talking about.
So what were his critiques of how Marvel does villains in his movies? We’ll let him explain.
“While Yellowjacket makes a decent villain here… I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero,” he writes. “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.”
We’d quibble a bit with this, since it’s also the case with Spider-Man that Venom is one of the most popular villains in the series, just as Wolverine doppelganger Sabretooth is the most popular Wolverine villain. Fans of Marvel comics in general have been attracted to storylines about heroes fighting darker versions of themselves — X-Men in particular has traditionally decided to execute this trope in the most comically lazy way imaginable by introducing darker versions of Phoenix and the Beast who are called… wait for it… Dark Phoenix and Dark Beast.
At any rate, this is at least a strong hint that the final novel in A Song of Ice and Fire will not feature a major battle between Daenerys and Dark Daenerys…
