6 Superhero Movies With Baffling Tie-In Products

Yes, Wonder Woman became the new face of thinkThin protein bars. Because that's her superpower, right? She's Wonder Woman because she's miraculously always ready for bikini season?

There's nothing inherently wrong with Wonder Woman's face being slapped on products that are considered feminine -- no one complained that she graced lipstick, lady razors, and froyo. But with thinkThin, the message became: "Wonder Woman is a celebration of the power of women in a male-dominated world! But no fat chicks." In contrast, Batman and Superman appeared on the cover of Muscle & Fitness, which promised to share the workout the stars used to get ripped for their movie. Getting superhero-style muscles is a male fantasy ... and having every woman constantly worry about staying thin is also a male fantasy. The male equivalent to this would be putting the Hulk's face on a brand of herbal supplements designed to fight premature ejaculation.

Not only was it a bad message, it was a contradictory and impossible one, since Wonder Woman also found herself on Dr. Pepper cans. Go guzzle down a delicious can of sugar to celebrate womanhood, ladies! Just remember to buy branded diet bars to help you shed that soda weight immediately afterwards, because society doesn't want strong, independent women who are also a little chubby!

Think about the kinds of places where a man would wear cologne. A wedding, a date, maybe a big job interview, or, based on the box, a junior high dance. None of those are situations in which you should be angry. If you're getting angry on a date, the next cologne you wear should be "seek counseling" or "agree that a peaceful separation is the healthiest move for both of you." But maybe that was simply a weird, one-off miscalculation. Surely the other Avengers got better slogans?

So this cologne is "your attack plan" for a date. You know, because dates are battles in which you must triumph. And if you don't, well ... you could always get angry.

The Gotham City promotion promises "a city that's risen above its past" while accidentally ominous music plays. It comes across like a video that would play in the movie as a plane crashed into Gotham City's jail as part of a plot to help all the murderers escape. "Discover why Gotham City is great again," a slogan that's already aged terribly tells us. Viewers are encouraged to check out the opera house (haha, get it?!), and then we see Bruce Batfleck Wayne sitting on a plane and clearly refusing to do more than one take of his line. The Metropolis ad is somehow even worse.

When a movie villain tells you that it's a great idea to come visit their city, do not take them up on the offer. You're only tempting fate. Even if you knew nothing about Superman lore, Jesse Eisenberg sitting on a plane and saying "We can't wait to welcome you" while fiddling with a toy and molesting the camera with his creep eyes should give you pause. If we can't tolerate a minute of hearing about Metropolis in an ad, why would we spend money to watch an entire movie about it?

We're not sure what Turkish Airlines got out of this deal, because we doubt that anyone left that two-and-a-half-hour slog and said to themselves, "Wow, what a movie! I can't wait to go home and book a flight to Ankara!" And since the promotional videos were short, efficient, and made use of a full color palette, they didn't prepare a single person for the experience that was awaiting them in theaters.

"Making an imaginary coffee into something real seemed like a fitting and fun way to honor the multilayered world of Watchmen," said someone involved in the product, before shedding their human skin and revealing themselves to be an alien that feeds on awkward marketing copy. Because if there's one word that's commonly used to describe Zack Snyder's Gloomy Slo-Mo Violence Glorification And Remedial Philosophy 101 Rain-a-Thon it's "fun." Get in on the supposed fun by dropping 20 bucks on a ten-ounce can of coffee that's probably nothing but Nabob with the price jacked up! Hey, real quick, remind us which Watchmen character profited the most from unchecked capitalism? It was the villain, right?

Solving America's complicated relationship with the military-industrial complex is beyond the scope of this article, but Northrop Grumman's products are used on very real human beings in very adult conflicts, while Marvel heroes fight goofy made-up monsters to entertain children. There's also the fact that, as angry fans were quick to point out, Iron Man sees Tony Stark become horrified by the weapons Stark Industries sells and then pivot the company to make ... shit, what does Stark sell now? Smartphones? Whatever, the point is that the very first movie in the Marvel Universe is about Stark making a conscious decision to stop running a company that was exactly like Northrop Grumman.

The details of the proposed marketing campaign were mostly lost when Marvel dropped the deal like a hot potato that could murder kids if employed based on the faulty intelligence of another hot potato, but we do know that there was going to be a comic wherein the Avengers would team up with the "Northrop Grumman Elite Nexus." Get it? The tagline was "Start Your N.G.E.N.s," and that alone should constitute a war crime. There also would've been recruitment ads.

Wait, why is Vision in one of those ads? Is ... is Northrop Grumman bringing an artificial intelligence to life with the use of a magical space stone, then giving it weapons? Clearly, no one there watched Iron Man, but someone please make them watch Age Of Ultron before it's too late.

So what would the Avengers do? Well, we're told that Captain America would pursue justice no matter where it leads, as the camera pans around to reveal that our hero is soliloquizing it up in the middle of a pocket dimension made mostly of posters.

Then a Hot Doctor shows up with a kid, because they're there for a super special advanced screening! "The Avengers rock!" declares the child, who's far too young to understand that he's sold his soul. Then the trio talk about the Avengers for a bit. Which one is the coolest? They debate, and arrive at a twist conclusion: They all are. Did you know that "Iron Man is the genius billionaire playboy, he gets to wear that really cool high-tech suit, fly around, save the world, and when he's not doing that he's going to the coolest parties and exotic locales"? General Hospital was one cut line of dialogue away from telling everyone Tony Stark's blood type.

The Nerd then accuses Hot Doctor's brother of committing a murder but forgetting it because he blacked out, a situation he argues is plausible by citing Bruce Banner. This segues into a serious conversation about the crime. Go see The Avengers, the perfect movie for hashing out your inner demons and dark secrets while waiting around in the lobby! Then, after that Real Talk, it's time to attend the screening so advanced that there are like five people there. Way to make the movie look popular, General Hospital!

Mr. Nerd hangs around outside for a bit and realizes that, gasp, Hot Doctor's brother might not be the murderer ... it could be an amnesiac Hot Doctor himself! He announces this to the movie poster, his only apparent friend. Then we cut to after the film, when Nerd tells Hot Doctor that he really enjoyed the movie, plans to see it a second time, and that he's been "inspired by the Avenger's good example to right a great wrong." Presumably if he hadn't seen The Avengers, he would have let the murder go unsolved. This nearly seven-minute scene didn't sell a single additional movie ticket, but it did ensure that a few disappointed grandchildren got a PlayStation 2 Batman game for Christmas.

Mark is on Twitter and, thanks to a promotional deal with Marvel, has a book.

On the off chance you don't have enough time to spend on all the Marvel movies, here's a handy Marvel Encyclopedia to keep you on track.

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For more check out The 6 Most Insanely Depressing Examples of Movie Merchandise and 6 Movie Marketing Tie-Ins That Hilariously Missed The Point.

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