It seems likely that the transition will take quite a while… That said, it's entirely like that shelf space freed up from software would simply be used to display more hardware and accessories, or possibly to provide additional working space for training sessions and/or troubleshooting issues with customers.
Author: Deano
Deano’s answer to: “After Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers, will Marvel run out of great superheores for their movie franchises?”
I'd actually take things in a little more hard boiled direction, and suggest Alias as a good comic to screen conversion… 
Deano’s answer to: “What are the chances of a Hawkeye feature film?”
You know who else had a nice dark, gritty, incredible background?
- Daredevil
- Ghost Rider
- The Punisher
- Man-Thing (no, really!)
- Wolverine
Uh-oh(*).
Historically, Marvel's "dark knights", if you will, have had a problem: how do you make money on the movie?
- Because it's a licensed film, you can't go too low budget, or you'll hurt the overall brand.
- If you aim too wide, especially in terms of movie ratings, a lot of the grit/pathos that makes the character interesting is lost.
- Related, if you focus too much on star power, what ends up on the screen is Ben Affleck in red leather, rather than Matt Murdock, Daredevil.
- Of course, stars are bad for other reasons… It might be easier to get a fan of the title to sign on, but then they may use their leverage to screw up the script or direction because they "know better" – looking at you, Nic Cage!
- Sometimes Hollywood gets lost in the origin issue – how can you tell fun new stories about the Punisher without first doing a "set up" piece about how he became a deranged homicidal maniac?
- If you ignore the origin and just tell the story, "won't all the non-fans get lost/turned off?" – this is not entirely unfounded… A lot of Marvel characters, especially, depend on their origin and background in the larger universe to be interesting. The Punisher by any other name… Is a dude with guns killing bad guys. That becomes a "red ocean" problem, where you suddenly ALSO need to just make a kick-ass vigilante action movie to compete with the rest of that genre, on top of everything else.
For these and other reasons, comic book movies tend to have a lot working against them from the very outset… And if the comic title in question isn't a "household name", well, for most producers and studios, it's just too risky to do as a tentpole/blockbuster.
On the brighter side – this is, in large part, why Marvel pulled out of its production deal with Sony in order to found their own studio – use your own cash, make your own rules. And now that they are "free", their execution has been much better… They will have released the entire "Avengers Core Team" as solo films by the end of 2011 – Hulk, Thor, Cap, and the Tin Can. With the exception of Captain America (not yet released), performance globally has been from decent to astounding.
The next step is to bring them all together in an eye-exploding orgy of hopefully-not-suck called The Avengers, in 2012. That movie should also see an expanded list of tier-two 'masks' like Hawkeye getting a bit of screen time… If done right, that might tip such heroes into the household name category, enabling them to star in their own films, gritty or otherwise.
To say the least, there are a lot of "what if's" involved, and only time will tell. But it's certainly fair to say that Marvel has learned an important lesson about fully-outsourcing its product to Hollywood, and that while there are likely to be continued misses down the road (Ghost Rider II, whaaaa?!?), the batting averages for the next 20 years are almost certainly going to be better than the last 20.
(* Daniel Shi, like some kind of mothafucka trying to ice skate uphill, pointed out that I left Blade off my list, but I had good reason: the titular hero, while dark and gritty as the rest, had a pretty good "daywalk" at the box office for a movie series of its time – $415,098,928 grossed in theaters across 3 films, with additional revenues from domestic and international licensing, digital, and DVD sales. For more details on the Blade trilogy, check in with my good buddy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bla… )
Deano’s answer to: “If Asgardian ‘magic’ is actually advanced technology, what stops Tony Stark from reverse engineering it when he and Thor work together on the Avengers?”
Stark is too busy for real science. He has Reed Richards for that… And seeing as Reed himself did manage to clone a 'Thor' who could wield Mjölnir during the Civil War story arc, it stands to reason that Asgardian tech-magic – at least in the comic books – is within the eventual grasp of (super)human science.
The real question for me is: why does regular human magic seem so beyond Stark, Pym, Richards, et al? Only Doctor Doom seems to seriously consider the benefits and implications of understanding and melding magic and technology, and, well, he's not the sharing and caring type.
Deano’s answer to: “Are the Black Panther and Storm the right match for one another?”
In a word? No. 
While I wouldn't consider the storyline to smack of racism directly, the "Bachelor-style" run up to the nuptials, combined with the "two African 'mutant royals' are a natural fit" logic is just a little too unbelievable to think that this would've happened in the real world… At least not without a great many more references to their mutual attraction throughout their respective Marvel timelines. It just seems like they said "Ororo is a black woman, which black dude should we hook her up with?" 
For a counterexample for how a good, realistic, and touching retcon-romance is done, check out Brian Michael Bendis' amazing Alias miniseries, which seeded the spark of what would be an eventual pregnancy and shotgun marriage between Luke Cage (Power Man) and Jessica Jones (formerly Jewel).
As a presumptive "black person" who feels more "ethnically geek" than anything else, I really dislike the appearance in entertainment media that reinforces the idea that people of a given race are happier "with one of their own"… Both because it closes them off to a huge percentage of the general population of potential (better?) matches, but also it just seems… Well… lazy[“].
"Lazy + Superhero King of Wakanda" just does not compute for me. The fact that it was all just a misguided push to attract black women to comics[*] just makes it sadder, in my opinion.
As for good options for each, I suggest the following candidates:
T'Challa:
- Sue Storm – fellow scientific genius, similar interests and relationship issues
- Pepper Potts – she can put up with Tony, she can put up with T'Challa
- Black Cat – Same feline theme, and if he has to marry someone "black"…
- Goliath – I think it's insulting that no one considered he might be gay
- Misty Knight – Two great detectives = Sunday morning crossword champs?
Storm:
- Forge – Come on, put 'em back together!
- The Falcon – She's the wind, he's the bird. Nuff said!
- Blade – What can I say, sometimes love bites!
- Doctor Strange – Her ancestors were witches, and they could share clothes
- Yukio – Punk Mohawk Ororo plus Insane Ninja Hottie = Yes, please!
[* Digging through the Wayback Machine, we find the dirt here: http://web.archive.org/web/20061… ]
[“ For an even worse matchup-fail, try the sequential pairings of Michonne with Tyreese and Morgan in The Walking Dead. Whaaaaaa?!? ]
Are the Black Panther and Storm the right match for one another?
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