Too Much of a Good Thing?

Karen: In the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," small, furry critters called tribbles breed rapidly and begin filling up the Enterprise. Lieutenant Uhura defends the fuzzballs, telling Captain Kirk that they're the only love money can buy. A frustrated Kirk responds, "Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing."

 I thought about this statement when considering our current geek existence. It's a pretty good time to be a geek. Look at this list of major motion pictures that have been or will be released this year that have comics or science fiction or fantasy themes:

• Deadpool
• Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice
• Jungle Book
• The Huntsmen: Winter's War
• Captain America: Civil War
• X-Men Apocalypse
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
• Warcraft
• Independence Day Resurgence
• Legend of Tarzan
• Ghostbusters
• Star Trek Beyond
• Suicide Squad
• Pete's Dragon
• Gambit 
• Dr. Strange
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Yes, there's really a Dr. Strange movie

That's a lot of genre-related movies! And that's just a partial list. I recall when we were lucky to get one or two major films a year. Now, there's one almost every week it seems.

We also have a ton of TV shows right now that are geeky, too many for me to remember and name, but off the top of my head, there's The Flash, Supergirl, Agents of SHIELD, Penny Dreadful, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Daredevil, Orphan Black, Twelve Monkeys, and so on. I mean, more than you can keep up with and still maintain a life.

And merchandise? Holy Cow. You got high end, low end, and everything in between. There's stuff for every show or character you can think of, no matter how obscure. It's incredible. You really have to watch your budget. We've seen a real explosion in trade paperbacks in recent years, with a lot of C-listers and even Marvel's horror characters  getting collected. And toys? I've become quite fond of the Hot Toys sixth scale figures -the detail is fantastic! -but I can't go buying them willy-nilly. These Megos on steroids are way too expensive for that. My husband sometimes gets them for me for birthdays or Christmas, and I buy one or two a year myself. I'll admit I just pre-ordered the Hot Toys Alien Warrior -but now I'm thinking Ant-Man looks cool. Ant-Man! Seriously. There's so much neat stuff out there.

So here's what I want to ask you. Are we hitting a saturation point of geeky goodness? Are we in danger of reaching, as the Captain said, too much of a good thing? Are there too many movies, too many TV shows, too many books and action figures? Will the fans -or even more importantly, the general public -get tired of so many super-hero movies coming out every year? I keep hearing about "super-hero fatigue" but the movies seem to keep making a ton of money. 

Or is there no such thing as too much of a good thing? Should we, the generation of "that's all we had"(copyright, David B.), just be damn glad we lived this long to see popular acceptance of the things we love, and ride it out as long as we can?

Warning: This Post May Cause Mental Anguish

Karen: We comics fans have been very fortunate to have seen a blossoming of super-hero films over the last few years, with this summer giving us four big flicks. So far, both "Thor" and "X-Men: First Class" have proved to be very entertaining, and the upcoming "Green Lantern" and "Captain America" films are looking good too.

But it wasn't always like this. In fact, super-hero films used to be a rare beast - and a good super-hero film was a miracle. Don't believe me? Take a look at some of these TV and movie attempts at bringing our heroes to life. Oh the pain....

I don't think this Justice League pilot ever aired...at least I'm praying it didn't.

I had the misfortune of seeing this execrable FF movie many years ago, when a friend bought a bootleg tape of it while three of us were at a Star Trek convention. Later that night, after a long dinner at a Mexican restaurant where the waitress had a black eye, we plopped down in the hotel room and watched this thing, in stunned disbelief. None of us could ever make out a word Doom said.

An Italian Red Skull? That pretty much tells you all you need to know about this one. Yeesh.