Unpopular opinion number 5: People can't stand a comic book character done accurately

Noticed this over the years, but every time a super hero movie, cartoon, or live action tv series comes out the characters really aren't at all like they are in the comics. On the rare occasions they try to be accurate most audiences hate it. Just a few examples:

Spider-Man: (Spider-Man 1981) - Shows he is painfully shy and you can tell he quips when Spider-Man to hide it.

Joker: Batman (Under the Red Hood) - Only version that is never funny even when cracking jokes like crazy

Batman (Justice League Frontier) - Only Batman that I remember to hardly ever show emotion. Every other one (Especially Batman TAS) gets angry every 3 seconds.

Superman (All Star Superman) - Clark Kent is slightly boring guy who never seems to ever get angry (mild mannered reporter for a famous mertopolitan newspaper). Only animated movie I ever seen him act like that really.

This doesn't mean that every character who acts exactly like the comic book is my favorite. Though Spider-Man 1981 and Batman Under the Red Hood have my favorite interpretations of the characters.

I think this is like comparing a book made into a movie, it's never quite the same. In both a comic series and a book a character can be properly fleshed out, the innards on display, the subtleties of the individuals. Most of that isn't well translated to what essentially needs to be a popular, money making film. No one want's a boring, mild mannered Superman or an unfunny Joker.

Yes because as we all know there is only one, ONLY ONE valid interpretation of comic book characters that have existed longer than some people's grandparents.

edit: my god I thought there was some new Spiderman show called Spider-Man 1981 but you are actually critiquing that shitty old cartoon that literally came out in 1981

LoneSage said:

Yes because as we all know there is only one, ONLY ONE valid interpretation of comic book characters that have existed longer than some people's grandparents.

edit: my god I thought there was some new Spiderman show called Spider-Man 1981 but you are actually critiquing that shitty old cartoon that literally came out in 1981

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I'm going by the original concept and what just about every version out there says is how they are supposed to act and reference it in their shows numerous times.

Spider-Man is a shy kid
Batman is emotionless
Joker is not funny
Clark Kent is boring

This isn't something I pulled out my ass like Spider-Man can run 300mph or Superman can tow multiple planets at a time (name the youtube show that did). This is stuff that is universally agreed upon.

You're acting as if comics are sacred texts handed down from on high. Are you some kind of superhero fundamentalist?

If he's saying comic (specifically super-hero) characters need to be changed for audiences to accept them in a live-action movie, well, yeah. They do. And when nerds complain that this or that was changed about a character, or that a character is not wearing his comic-accurate, brightly-colored leotard, what the nerd would prefer would almost universally have made a worse movie.

I mean, I'm a nerd, too. But a nerd with sense.

And Bakaboy, you, like most other complain-y nerds, don't really know jack shit about Batman. You think you do, but you have a very blinkered experience of the character.

wyo, your original Batman run isn't printed on gold tablets and stored in a collector's box with golden cherubs on top? The Knights Templar delivered mine personally.

Mr Bakaboy said:

...painfully shy [...] is never funny even when cracking jokes [...] hardly ever show emotion [...] is slightly boring guy who never seems to ever get angry...

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Well, you got a point there, since all the above would sum up to a brilliant movie with lots of well-thought-out, exciting characters. One that would ensure the financial security of every studio. Oh, yes, and would inherit a personal wit, which is above reproach.

It’s practically New Year’s Eve but we have a contender here for worst-thread-outside-thewaroom-of-the-year.

oliverclaude said:

Well, you got a point there, since all the above would sum up to a brilliant movie with lots of well-thought-out, exciting characters. One that would ensure the financial security of every studio. Oh, yes, and would inherit a personal wit, which is above reproach.

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My mistake. I guess introvert movies don't get made because that is a studio liability. Glad you set me straight. Not like Donnie Darko, Pump Up the Volume, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Weird Science, and Heathers ever amounted to much... Good talk.

For the others thanks for telling me making assumptions of stuff that is general knowledge is dumb. I know now not to assume Garfield likes lasagna , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like pizza and Cookie Monster likes cookies. My bad.

This thread is a tragedy

Thanks I strive to meet your expectations.

Btw you know what REALLY wouldn't sell? Make Peter Parker a painful introvert but as Spider-Man hardly ever have him quip. Then have him fight a Green Goblin with an actor who has the best facial emoting and hide him in a mask so all of that is pointless. That movie would tank for sure!

The Hindenberg, Armenian Genocide, 9/11, and now this thread

Comic book fans tend to like the Avengers movies. And those movies are terrible.
Such fans also tend to like the "Marvel Universe" concept. But that concept ruins movies.

Mr Bakaboy said:

I guess introvert movies don't get made because that is a studio liability. Glad you set me straight. Not like Donnie Darko, Pump Up the Volume, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Weird Science, and Heathers ever amounted to much...

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Blade Runner, Dark City, Butcher Boy, Life of Pi, Fight Club... what are you driving at? That putting words in other people's mouth does prove a point? Maybe it's time to turn your neurotic misery into general unhappiness, so you could be like the rest of us, Mr Bubbleboy.

Bakaboy:

The problem with maintaining the 'original' version of the character in a silver screen adaptation is that the 'original' version of a comic book character isn't really the best distillation of the character.

Cape characters are, inherently, disposable pop culture. At their 'origin', none of these ideas were meant to exist in perpetuity. But what ended up happening is the same thing that happened with mythology; it stayed in human consciousness. Whatever it is about mythology that continues to entice us, cape characters are under that same umbrella.

So, in terms of human consciousness and cultural relevance, we continue to revisit these characters and ideas and re-interpret them as times change. Then you get companies and corporations seeing how money can be made off of marketing and selling these ideas to us over and over again. But they have to pivot from time to time as the market's perceptions and tastes change.

Can we honestly say that the 'original' version of Heracles is somehow 'better' than Marvel Comics' Hercules character simply by virtue of being 'first'? I'd argue that Bob Layton's cosmic take on the character is the best version of the character we've ever gotten.

I once said something similar to what you said, and right here at NG.com. I think it was Famicommander that corrected me, and rightly so, when I argued for an 'original' interpretation of the characters and he said that Batman once used guns but is now anti-killing.

Now, Fami can be a salty cunt but he wasn't wrong there. I prefer a Batman that doesn't use guns and doesn't kill. But the original version of the character did both of those things.

What's important isn't whether or not the adapted version is as close to the original vision as possible. Frank Miller's Daredevil is arguably the best take on the character in history, maybe the best take any creator ever had on a comic book character in the history of the medium. But that is a vastly different, grittier and dirtier version of the character than we 'originally' saw. If Daredevil maintains any purchase in the comics realm, Miller is the man most responsible for that. Notice how they keep going back to that well even though Miller has long since moved on?

It's better to argue for a 'definitive' version of the character to be adapted, which I think many of the MCU movies have done. There are a few liberties, sure, but I think overall the 'idea' of these characters is pretty well curated for live action.

But they need to be adjusted for general movie going audiences. Because if the comic versions of these characters were as accessible to Joe Average, there would be a lot of murdered forests from monthly sales right now.

If you prefer definitive versions, stick to the comic runs that you like the best and treat everything else as a distaff for personal purposes.

wyo said:

You're acting as if comics are sacred texts handed down from on high. Are you some kind of superhero fundamentalist?

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Taiso said:

Can we honestly say that the 'original' version of Heracles is somehow 'better' than Marvel Comics' Hercules character simply by virtue of being 'first'?

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Uh, yeah. We can easily say that.

but what about Disney hercules

You know....sometimes the comics are some goofy dumb ass story lines. They are also 462392 different comic story lines for a single character.

The mistake is to assume that there is any correlation between illustrated comic and live action film. The adaptation from one to another is unnatural. I for one love San Raimi's Spiderman 2, but mostly because it's a Sam Raimi film.

Spiderman 2 is some boring ass shit and that "don't mess with New York" scene is some cringey ass shit.

Famicommander said:

Spiderman 2 is some boring ass shit and that "don't mess with New York" scene is some cringey ass shit.

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+1

i never understood how people liked spiderman 2 more than the first movie. i always thought it was long and boring. and spiderman's hardly in it, it's more about mary jane than any one else.

Bogard said:

+1

i never understood how people liked spiderman 2 more than the first movie. i always thought it was long and boring. and spiderman's hardly in it, it's more about mary jane than any one else.

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Nothing to understand mate. I just liked it. It's a well constructed film. Pizza delivery boy scene sets the mood.
Fami, shut it.

The first good live action Spidey was Homecoming. I liked the first Raimi one as a kid but it doesn't hold up at all. I think I fell asleep in the theater for the second, and the less said about the third, the better. The Andrew Garfield ones were aggressively mediocre.