“I dunno,” said Comic-Con attendee Boyd Phan after the much-anticipated Marvel Studios Hall H presentation at this year’s Comic-Con International, held in the San Diego Convention Center. “I get that grown men were literally weeping with joy at the sight of Wolverine on screen in his original yellow uniform. And I get that Marvel made a giant hit out of a weird throwaway team with Guardians of the Galaxy. But that doesn’t mean that every old idea is good, or that every obscure character is some kind of hidden gem just waiting to be polished. Plant Man? Plant Man? Outside of Evil Dead, when have trees ever been scary? Maybe in Snow White? Did they learn nothing from The Happening?”

Marvel Grand Pooh-Bah Kevin Feige’s opening statement at Comic-Con 2024: “As film critic Sonny Bunch has noted, environmentalists make good movie villains. He pointed to Thanos, the great, great villain of our salad days, who wanted to care for the universe’s environment by eliminating half of its living beings. DC paid attention, the way they always do, and made Orm the big baddie of their rare hit Aquaman; he wanted to kill humanity for polluting the oceans. And when the Godzilla people set out to build a cinematic universe, they turned to a crazy lady scientist who released monsters in the hope they would destroy humanity and restore equilibrium on earth. Hating humanity is key. We got a little distracted with Kang and his various personal issues, but we think that in Plant Man, we’ve found a way to right the ship. Who’s gonna care more about the environment than this guy? And what better way to say thanks to San Diego for all the great years of hosting this convention than to call our first Plant Man-based film Corpse Flower? It’s ominous, but more importantly, it honors the fact that not one but two of those stinky buggers have bloomed at the newly renovated San Diego Botanical Building this year. ”