Comic book fans: What are they saying about the slew of new superhero films?

Image Credit: John Schwartzman; Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios In this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly, we took a look at the superhero-heavy diet Hollywood is serving up to moviegoers for 2011 and 2012. It's a regular binge of masked celebs, served with generous helpings of high-profile directors, hand-battered in sequels and reboots and deep-fried to golden crispiness. Most audiences will devour this repast of capes and tights. But what are crime-fighting movie fans with more discriminating tastes expecting?

We asked Ahmad Childress, Managing Editor of Crave Online, a media outlet that oversees such fansites as Super Hero Hype and Film School Rejects, to get his take on what comic book enthusiasts and the diehard fanboy-and-girl communities are saying about the upcoming deluge of villain-pummeling epics.

"The thing that usually polarizes people first is the casting," Childress says. "That always gets debated to death out of everything."

Read Childress' take on the buzz surrounding each upcoming superhero flick after the jump:

Thor —"Thor's a hard one because Thor, while a big character in Marvel, isn't necessarily particularly well-known outside of the comics. Although [director Kenneth] Branagh looks like he's kind of figured out a way to present that well. I don't see any super big red flags. Branagh should be able to turn in a decent movie there." (May 6, 2011)

X-Men: First Class —"It's a weird way to do a prequel. They're going fairly far back from the X-Men movies people are used to seeing. Also, it's been a while since there's been an X-Men movie. As much as there was an audience for those films, I'm not sure this is a movie people want to see, necessarily." (June 3, 2011)

The Green Lantern —"This is another one where [fanboys] weren't the happiest with the casting. That particular character isn't necessarily comedic, and Ryan Reynolds is generally known to do a lot of comedic stuff. If Reynolds doesn't connect with the audience and is too jokey, DC might have some problems on their hands." (June 17, 2011)

Captain America: The First Avenger —"It's a character that audiences know but don't necessarily know anything about. This could go really, really well, or go down in flames. He's kind of Marvel's Batman. He's a well-known character and a beloved character and they're finally bringing him to the screen after a long time." (July 22, 2011)

The Avengers —"The Avengers is probably the biggest crapshoot out of all them, because it really hinges on how well Thor and Captain America do. It's also a movie full of leads. [Director] Joss Whedon's got his work cut out for him. They've got a lot of characters and a lot of elements to balance. It's gonna be rough." (May 4, 2012)

The Amazing Spider-Man —"I think Andrew Garfield's a fine choice for the [title] role. Maybe not as nerdy as Tobey Maguire was. There are a lot of people who aren't happy that they're completely rebooting it. The costume looks fine. He looks fine in it. It looks like it's going to have a lot of action. I think it's a little too early to tell, because we don't really know anything about the story." (July 3, 2012)

The Dark Knight Rises —"Fans are really going to be interested in where they go with the Bane character — a lot of people expected Tom Hardy to be playing Hugo Strange. Bane was a character in [1997's maligned Batman and Robin] and played really over the top, and he's kind of an over the top character anyway. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the [new] movie." (July 20, 2012)

The Wolverine —"They've chosen a director that the fans are really happy with, [Black Swan's Darren Aronofsky]. It looks like they're going [to have] Wolverine in Japan — fans will be very happy to see that on screen. The fact that they're bulking Hugh Jackman up — if executed well, this could be Marvel's Dark Knight." (2012)

Superman —"I think fans are pretty happy with the choice [of director Zack Snyder]. As far as Henry Cavill as Superman — I don't think he's a name that people are familiar [with] enough. But it makes sense that they kind of followed the traditional Superman casting by casting someone who's relatively unknown." (2012)

That's Childress' take — what's yours? What are you excited about? What's got you talking? Commence discussion of archenemies, secret identities, and nefarious plots below.