Wow, thanks to everybody, it's good to know that I'm not alone in my opinion that all these movies are great. Here's my personal opinion on things.....
Blade - Was an awesome romp through a somewhat less-publicized comic, this was the first movie made after the huge turnaround in Marvel's leadership. They had a new boss, new set of designers and executives and they made a great movie.
X-Men - After Blade's success, somebody realized that was a future for comic book movies, so they moved to a main-stream comic that was struggling in book sales. After the movie was another huge success, comic sales also increased. Marvel also starts revamping the image of many of their comic lines about this time. e.g. Ultimate Spider-man, with Parker back to the teenage years.
Spider-man - Sales were up, Marvel now realized that had the money, the people, and the technology to make a drop-dead knockout movie. Everything came together, they had the perfect director (a Spidey fan since childhood), the perfect Peter Parker, the perfect MJ, and the perfect design team to make the writing, sets, effects and music all come together. They also had the ingenious idea of making the movie have a great soundtrack, complete with "Hero", the song that became almost synonomous with Spidey.
Daredevil - A slight problem arose here, Marvel was drunk with glee over the amazing success of Spider-man, even down to the huge toy sales. So they went right into the next movie, which was not as well known as Spidey and therefore they had to make it even better to attract audiences who didn't know the character. I also think that the big-name casting was a mistake, Ben Affleck, Colin Ferrell, and the guy who played King-pin. Although they did a great job, in my opinion, one of Spidey and X-men's strengths was the use of mostly unknown or little-known actors. Although Jennifer Garner was my favorite part of the movie, and I think Joe Pantoliano played a great Yurich (sp). Even though, I loved the movie regardless, but I do see it's flaws. I did enjoy that they decided to attach a song to the film, "Bring Me to Life" is a great song.
X2 - Marvel got a bit of a slap across the face with Daredevil and so took a little more care with this. They realized that while a comic movie can be dark, D-D was a little too dark. After all, these are "comic" book movies, not scary thrillers. So they made this movie in the same style as the first X-men, but upped the ante with more action, effects, and storyline. All in all, it's an awesome flick. I think it is better than the first, and I wouldn't mind another one, just not right away, maybe in two or three years.
Hulk - I admit to being leery, I think it will be an exciting and enjoyable adventure, I'm glad they're back to using unknowns, and the effects look astounding. But the Hulk doesn't have much story on his own, none of these characters do. Spidey needed the Goblin, X-men needed Magneto, even Daredevil needed Bullseye. I'm sure I will enjoy it though, I have yet to be disappointed by Marvel's efforts.
Future - I think that Marvel has hit the jackpot with it's movies, but just like in the lottery, you should get your winnings spread out over a period of several years rather than in one huge lump. I'm afraid that if Marvel continues to make these huge movies right on the tails of each other, they're going to fall into a dangerous pit. In the last five years they've made or are in production of at least eight huge blockbuster movies, each one trying to outdo the last. At this rate, the movies will either have continue to grow in awesomeness or else they'll bomb. It's time for Marvel's exec's to sit back and say, "All right, we've made more money than we can ever spend, let's sit back and relax and work on one movie at a time, making each one perfect and releasing them with room to breath. Then each movie won't have to outdo the last, just keep the same intensity and throw in some new twists.
), but the other two were the coolest supporting characters in ToD. The first issue of ToD I ever bought was the one with Hannibal King, where you don't find out he's a vampire until the last page. For a 9 year old (or whatever I was at the time), it was quite a surprise.
