DeadOn the Comic Book Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Posted by stopmikelupica in SML, Sound advice for the young'ems, Stopmikelupica, supergroups.Tags: Movies To Avoid
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The point of DeadOn is to take on pop culture; pop culture tends to be defined by music, TV and movies mostly. However, in the intersection of art and literature lays an underappreciated aspect of pop culture: the comic book. This is the first of DeadOn’s look at the comic book, which will take place every Wednesday morning for the following few weeks.
I grew up reading Marvel comics. I couldn’t really afford my comic book habit (we were a broke ass family growing up in the slums next to the projects), but that didn’t stop me. I would just steal comic books from the stores. Kids reading this, I want you to understand something: Stealing from your friends or other poor people is bad. That makes you a bully. But stealing from stores (especially if the owner/manager is a prick) is totally okay. It makes you like Robin of the Hood. That makes you cool.
Now it seems that comics have grown up with me – those same comics me and my peeps used to read for entertainment as young boys/gals are now the same entertainment we are watching as 20-something adults. Do I really have to point out that Heroes on NBC is based on the nostalgia for these comic books of yore? Or that one Stan Lee, creator and still the face of Marvel Comics, had a cameo on last Monday’s episode?
But let’s start our discussion with a look at the movies that have come out in the last decade based on Marvel comics. There are the top two series: the Spider-Man series, now up to its third movie (see the preview here), and The X-Men, which seems to have ended at three. The X-Men series is continuing on, though, via a Wolverine movie due in 2008. These are the undeniable successful franchises. No surprise, either, since they featured the most developed characters in the Marvel universe, with the best villains and plots, too. They are the monument to what Marvel movies could be.
But there are lots of failures: the Daredevil, Punisher, Elektra, Incredible Hulk and Ghost Rider movies have all been critically panned, and had only mild commercial success. This despite have big name actors for the most part: Ben Affleck; Colin Farrell, Jennifer Gardner, Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Nick Nolte, Nick Cage, Thomas Jane, John Travolta. This despite having a fan base already built for these movies. The Hulk film is especially disappointing when you take into account it was directed by Ang Lee.
Oddly enough, The Fantastic Four, of all movies, has a sequel out this summer. Most incredulous of all, it looks almost entertaining (see preview here). The Fantastic Four movie was the worst of all the aforementioned flicks, one I could not even make it through without falling asleep. Yet it has spun off a sequel, thanks mostly to cheap actors and one cool storyline left (the Silver Surfer/Galactus plot) to exploit.
So here’s what left of the Marvel movie franchises: Some more Spider-Man movies (they can and will exploit that franchise until it burns to the ground, like Batman). Then what? Maybe the Avengers? Or the individual characters of the Avengers: Captain America – been done in the 80’s, and is just not an interesting character. The Might Thor? Iron Man? Oh, wait… that’s done, too – coming in 2008. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrance Howard? Then what? What else is left?
Questions for Canadian DJM and the readers out there:
1) What chance do the Avengers or any of those characters have of making it to the big screen? And of being good movies?
2) What makes a comic book into a good movie, and why does DC (Batman, Superman) seem to have a better success rate than Marvel? For that matter, even other comic book companies have done a better job producing their comics into movies (Spawn, Sin City, TMNT, etc) – why is that?
3) What comic books should be adapted into movies?
Next week we’ll divulge into some of the responses, and name our top underrated comic books series of the 80’s and 90’s. And I might even tell you about the time I sold my Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie card for $35 (face value = $75), then stole it back a week later from the store I had sold it to. If you ever wondered why stores keep the valuable stuff behind the glass counter, now you know….
I still have all my Amazing Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Wolverine comics from when I was a kid. I was a total Marvel rube. I never really got into DC Comics (unless you count the “Dark Knight” graphic novels). But the excitement of digging through all those stacks of comics at the store and trying to find the missing issues for your collections was definitely a highlight of my adolescence. That and Dungeons & Dragons – I know, I was a geek.
I think the reason DC and other companies have had more success with their characters is I don’t think there is quite the attachment to those characters as there is to Marvel characters. Marvel characters seemed so much more human, I guess.
I just wish Gambit had been in the X-Men movies. He was awesome.
I heard that they were going to make a Namor, The Sub-Mariner movie. No seriously.
I never really got into Marvel or DC, even though I did a lot of other geeky things in high school (D&D, even Magic until it got too expensive and boring). The only comic book I bought regularly was Bone
“Bone” doesn’t sound like a comic to me. But I’m not judging!
Goathair, I wanted to see Gambit too. He was awesome. and I wish Archangel had had a bigger role.
Bone – you’re missing out
Good call Elric: there is a Namor movie in the works: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436803/
Marvel seems to have an unlimited amount of crap characters to do movies on. Somewhere an angry AquaMan is slapping his sea horse up.
As for Gambit, I really wanted to see him in the X-Men movies, too. Not even a small cameo. The must have been holding him off for a reason – I expect him to emerge with a solo flick at some point.
SML – I’m just surprised James Cameron isn’t directing. But actually I thought about it, and a Namor movie would be kind of interesting.
They’d probably have to cast an Asian guy (Rick Yune maybe? Can I get a comment from Ladies… on him?) and it’s always interesting to see how scripts treat minority superheroes.
Plus Namor is all environmentally aware and stuff, so my guess is that there would be some poorly done “Shave the Whales” aspect to the movie
I dont know if you all read a short series called 1602. I thought it was really good and would make an intresting movie. Granted i´m not very into comic books so im sure that there are much better options out there. I just happened to pick that one and thought it was really good.
20 years ago, I was an avid reader of G.I. Joe and Transformers comics. So does the Transformers movie coming out this summer count as a comic book movie?
There’s no way Fantastic Four was worse than Daredevil. No way. They took a dark, grim tale of crime and justice and instead featured a full on fight… in a playground. After thinking the Clarke Duncan casting was pure genius, I was saddened to find out they’d turned him into the equivalent of a villain from the Ambiguously Gay Duo cartoons. Just tragic.
Also, the worst movie idea I heard was Deathlok. Freaking. Deathlok.
Gambit? Really? I own every issue of X-Men from 138-330, but I stopped collecting when I had to buy comics from 6 separate series just to follow one X-Men storyline.
That said, I would love to see a Thor movie – I think the duality of the character, his issues with his Dad, the Norse mythology would all make a very good film. But Namor can go blow (and we all know Leonard Nimoy is the Sub-mariner, right?).
Deathlok movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365107/
Yeah, the thing about Deathlok is that, though an uninspired comic book that existed on the periphal of the Marvel Universe, it might work as a movie (think an updated Robocop). I’ll have to get into this more next time.
The FF was worse than Daredevil, IMO; it’s splitting hairs, both were subpar and tremendously disappointing, but Daredevil was more viewable to me…
I fully intend to delve into the Transformers in another post soon….
@Undergroundbto: Leonard Nimoy is the voice of Galvatron.
Also, Thor doesn’t seem like a good character to me, but it depends on what they do with the script. In the comics, he was never a popular character because his human side didn’t coexist with his heroic side; his human side was almost an irrelevant subplot to fill time. Thor as a hero was never developed. He lacked good villains, save for his half-brother Loki. He struck me as Superman without Lois Lane or Lex Luthor.
As a movie it could be taken in many different directions, so the potential is there, but taken as the comic was written it would not seem to make for a good movie.
One thing that I think is worth pointing out on the D.C. comics side is the simple fact that Superman and Batman have been around for so long that the characters have been reinvented over and over – particularly Batman. Batman’s been brought to screens both small and large in a variety of guises because the writers of the books have written the character in a variety of guises as well. The ultra-camp Adam West and Joel Schumacher productions drew on the campy 60s and 70s era ultra campy storylines, while Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan both draw on Frank Miller’s ultraviolent The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One among others. More importantly, Batman himself has been written different ways, from freewheeling playboy to tortured headcase/borderline psychotic.
Wolverine and Spiderman (both introduced much more recently) have had their origns ret-conned a variet of different ways, but the characters are the same throughout – loner with sense of honor and nerdy and insecure, respectively. The X-Men and Spiderman franchises have succeded despite this because of the complex universes of easily identifiable characters that have been built up around them. I mean “easily identifiable” such that Magneto’s origins aren’t a trivial matter (holocaust survivor that ultimately has the same aim as Professor X – mutant survival), whereas the motivations of the Kingpin or Dr. Doom just don’t resonate (power/money, power/domination of Reed Richards/self-inflicted face wounds).
@Spankyjoe: I think thats the major problem with trying to get younger kids in to Superman/Batman, other then in the movies. Because it is so hard for someone new to the comic books to actually try to trace back the whole story of either of those characters. And its really hard for someone to get a fresh perspective on it. It pretty much all been done before. I mean superman fucking died already. What else can you do really? So i don´t really see kids (like my younger brother who is 10) ever really getting into any of the older more established comics.
@Ivan: The increased market presence of trade paperbacks might help younger readers get into more established characters/stories. When I was a wee one (back in the 80s) visiting my grandparents, I found a tattered hardbound collection of all the Superman stories from his inception to about the mid 70s that must have belonged to my uncle. Just because the stories aren’t current doesn’t mean that they won’t engage a younger reader. (For the record – I do most of my comic reading in trade paperbacks because I’m too lazy to follow 6 different series at once).
Now, I think that you’re absolutely right that it’s becoming exceptionally difficult to come up with fresh storylines – it usually takes multi-book crossover events. Just take a look at how things got started with the Adam Warlock/Thanos Marvel storylines and the DC Infinity Crisis events of the 80s. Fast-forward to the present day,and it looks like Marvel in particular just goes from one crossover event to another – House of M to the current Civil War (to say nothing of DC’s Cataclysm and Crisis on Infinite Earths crossovers). Total pain for a casual reader like me to follow.
@SpankyJoe: Thats actually more or less how i stared reading them too, my uncle read them and i found them around the house and thought they were great. And, I actually prefer the short limited series, if they are meant to stand alone mostly. The problem is that most of them, as you noted, are crossover deals, and that means instead of just picking up 7 to 10 books over the course of a few months i would have to read 30 different books before i could even start the series just to know what the fuck is going on. Which is why i agree with you that its hard to be a casual reader. Which is all many people can afford to be these days.
Good read man. IDK the batman movie was great but I thought the Superman movie was terrible. I agree with yall about Gambit, great character and definately should have been featured in the movies. I also hope they come back with another Xmen movie with the Apocalypse and 4 horsemen storyline but thats just me
I can’t get over the last X-Men movie – it was just so badly written and rushed… there was much potential there. Yet they didn’t bother to develop the characters they were introducing by the dozen. Such a shame to end the franchise that way… that really could have gone on for a while, as no comic book has the plot depth and characters to draw from as X-Men does.
The worst part is that Bryan Singer skipped directing X-Men 3 (he directed the first two movies) so he could direct Superman Returns, an inferior movie. Well, I guess he figured that franchise would be around longer, with Superman: The Man of Steel due in 2009.
X-Men III pulled a Judas and absolutely betrayed me. Despite Singer’s departure, he pretty much gift-wrapped a perfect Wrath-of-Khan-esque sequel setup for Ratner, and Ratner totally crapped the bed. Between the abandonment of major characters, incorporation of annoying arcade game/internet re-dub memes, etc, absolute disappointment. Two things were especially egregious about this disappointment.
First, while it was lengthy and complicated, the Dark Phoenix saga had a brief resolution in the comics that would have worked great for the movie – Beast develops a technological way to limit the Phoenix force while Xavier rebuilds the psychic barriers. Granted, this skips over the entire Shi’ar, but it avoids all the problems of creating new characters out of whole cloth. The big draw to the X-Men is like StopMikeLupica notes: “no comic book has the plot depth and characters to draw from as X-Men does.”
Second, I understand the name cachet of a Superman movie, but the actual character of Kal-El is *boring*. He’s a boy scout in tights, and as hard as you try to manufacture conflict, it’s just not going to stick. You’d think a guy so previously conscientious about storylines such as Singer would have recognized this, but no.
“A boy scout in tights” is an excellent summary of Superman; it also applies to the Captain America character, which is why a Captain America movie is unlikely to be very interesting – it’s Superman without the love story, and without a worthy villain. And without the cool flying scenes.
Other disappointing aspects of X3 (which I could spend days ranting on): they introduce characters like the Juggernaut, Multiple Man, etc, but they never explain their motives or develop them. This scene sums it up:
Magneto: “Join me”.
MM, Juggernaut, et al: “Cool”.
Ugh.