Will Hollywood Kill The Comic Book?

 

Let me explain something to all of you. I, like many of my fellow nerdmen, have been waiting for my favorite heroes to hit the big screen since before I stopped wetting my bed. Hey, it happens to more teenagers than you think, so leave me alone.  The comics of my childhood were written so well, and illustrated beautifully; I couldn’t help but dream of my favorite storylines moving into a Cineplex near me. With some terrible early attempts, like the mostly unknown 1990 Captain America starring Who Knows and Why Bother, I held out hope for great adaptations that just might introduce these stories to the world at large.

Well, Holy Shit… it actually happened.

Not only was I rewarded with decent translations of some epic comics and graphic novels – and I seriously stress decent on some of those – the world around me reacted very favorably towards these heroes and villains. I mean, I’ll never forget watching The Dark Knight opening night, and hearing the crowd burst into applause and cheering at the opening title shot. I hadn’t experienced that since Episode 1… we were all fooled, don’t feel bad. Before you knew it, great superhero movies were coming out one after the other, with the occasional sprinkle of hidden graphic novel gems.

 

But at what price did this come about? Sure, we got to see our favorite heroes on screen, but was it really the same thing? Were the characters that were portrayed in the movies the ones we had grown up with? No, they weren’t. Frankly, some weren’t even close.

DC struck first, with Superman: The Movie­, which saw everybody across the world experiencing the joy of Superman. As they said about the late Christopher Reeves, “You’ll believe a man can fly.” I know I sure did when I saw it as a fresh faced little’un. This was soon soured by Hollywood getting their hooks in and making a slew of ridiculous sequels that put shame to a legendary character. It bordered on offensive, and I don’t even like Superman that much.

Batman, Batman, Batman. Same story… great start, ridiculous sequels, even more ridiculous stories. It’s almost too easy to rag on these movies, so I’ll save it; we have bigger fish to fry.

 

Marvel successfully tackled the movie industry with their release of Blade in 1998. Blade fucking rocked. I don’t care what anybody says, it may not have had the same origin or look as early issues of Blade…but have you read the early issues of Blade? He looked like an elfin troll hunter, not the vampire hunter.

However, I feel like Blade wasn’t necessarily considered as one of the superhero movies. Sure, to all us comgeeks it was a momentous occasion, but to the world at large, it was another fantasy action movie that starred Wesley Snipes. It spawned two sequels, neither of which was able to match the first. This was a vicious trend that had been dooming movies since after Star Wars in 1977. Yes, the sequels still kicked ass, but nobody came down on sequels until Star Wars released the final chapters (If you think I’m talking about Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, you probably don’t belong on this site).

This trend continued for years until X-Men, one of the most popular comic series of the 90’s, and one of the most anticipated movies of the decade, was released in 2000. And while there was definitely some major differences between the movie and the comic, it still provided hope that a good comic book movie could be made. X-Men touched on all the important parts of the X-Men mythos without getting lost in the sensationalism that the comic books sometimes rely on. It continued to break the trend by producing a decent sequel, further extending the realistic universe that these characters could occupy. While not the same as our beloved comics, it was a take on the characters that was acceptable.

Spider-Man was another big hit, and I distinctly remember creaming my jeans watching the first theatrical trailer. It was beautiful. Again, not the same as the comics, but you can accept the changes because it makes sense in the context of the movie. And just like X-Men, it produced a great sequel, and comics met reality, bringing it home to the general populace who weren’t in it for the comics and didn’t get some of the history.

 

That’s when Hollywood really reared its ugly face and started dictating how these movies were made. Company intervention became predominant in a genre based on set stories and situations. This led to terrible sequels that rarely made sense, X-Men: The Last Stand and in its own way, Spider-Man 3. I mean, seriously, a movie with Colossus and Juggernaut, and they don’t even throw one punch to each other throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE!!!!!!

Too many hands in the cookie jar, trying to direct where the franchises should go to make the most money, and try to make the fans happy. Notice which comes first in that sentence. With Spider-Man 3, I respect what they were trying to do, but they missed the mark completely. Big villains, epic romance, dance sequences. All I know is I spent two boobless hours watching Peter Parker slowly evolve into a weeping vagina. At least I got to stare at Bryce Dallas Howard.

I only bring up these flicks as examples. There was a lot of hero movies released that failed to hit the mark due to Hollywood being afraid to stick to the source material, or even remotely close. What the hell was Dr. Doom doing in the satellite with the rest of the FF? Picking on Daredevil is a little too easy, but Bullseye’s lack of a costume when his costume could have been the coolest thing in the theater is unforgivable. I can’t even go into V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Constantine or other graphic novel based movies, for fear of damaging my keyboard with copious amounts of gut spooge.

 

But it’s easy to name all the problems that I have with the different adaptations, mainly because like everyone else I paid good money to see each and every one of them. The movies were a success, for the most part, and I still wait with baited breath for the newest release. But Hollywood has more tools to strike fear in the hearts of fanboys besides the movies of the well established comic properties.

The rapid announcement of upcoming comic related movies has me excited, yet concerned. Comic scripts are being optioned for theatrical production before some of the source projects are even finished or published. Hundreds of comic properties are being optioned on the sheer assumption that it will make a solid high grossing motion picture. The upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie was in pre-production and with nearly a full cast before the graphic novel it was loosely based on ever saw print. With so many being set up for movies before they are able to get a leg up in their own medium, too many fall through the cracks.

 

I have to side with the great Alan Moore on this one, and retreat a little back to the time when these stories were written for a specific medium, and that was the comic book. The plain old comic book, entertaining children and adults across the world for decades – the comic book which wasn’t broken. So why try to fix it to better mingle with the money making demon-womb commonly known as Hollywood?

Now, this isn’t to say it will affect our classic superfaves and their continuing stories in a negative way. While they may not all take the greatest direction, they are already in the loop of the Hollywood sensation, and are exempt from this latest Crisis. (I’m sorry, but Crisis just doesn’t look right to me unless it’s capitalized…Blame Wolfman and Perez, not me.) The real victims are the smaller, independently created, potentially ball splitting crack fallers that lose their chance because of the stigma placed on them to produce a comic that will make a good movie.

Hollywood has a power in the comics industry. But as we all know, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Not only a responsibility to the countless fans out there, a responsibility to the original works of art. The stories that they strip mine for their summer blockbusters are what should be recognized and remembered. I will probably always be at the theater to wait in a ridiculous line next to my fellow hygiene challenged fanboys to see the latest and greatest. But my first priority will forever be in my local comic shop to get the real latest and greatest… the Comic Book.