2008: The Year Comic Book Movies Got Respect

Looking at all these year end best of lists and reflecting on the year that was 2008 I can honestly say this: Goddamn it, I am so happy Iron Man and The Dark Knight exist. It's as if all of us comic book reading geeks cool guys who have been screaming and pulling our hairs out over terrible superhero movies in the past have been not only heard, but proven right.

For sure my favourite comic book I discovered on the
internet: Devil Dinosaur. Hey everyone, make this a movie!

What have we been screaming about you might ask? Well, how about about the way superhero movies are made - from studio plot meddling (All Punisher movies), major character changes (Fantastic 4 & X-Men), to the need to dumb every movie down and handle it with kid-gloves. (Every comic book movie ever.)

Pure kid gloves, guy

With respect to such films as Fantastic 4 and X-Men, why would anyone change the plot and/or characters in a comic or graphic novel that has been successful for decades in order to make a movie that appeals to people who didn't care about it in the first place? Here's the thing: these stories are good, these characters and their origins are good, that's why people read the comics in the first place. Also, I understand the kid gloves thing, you don't want your film rated R because teens and kids are the biggest audience for films, but don't try and shoehorn a story about a psycho vigilante Vietnam vet murdering mobsters into a movie where John Travolta mildly pisses off a baby-faced Uncle Jesse lookalike.

I take it back, this is a pretty good villain, Tarzan John Travolta

If you make a movie based on the original stories and characters, regular people will come. Regular people are dumb, if they see something flashy that a group of other, different people are liking a lot, they will go look at it. Even if they aren't totally pleased and then afterward go see "Disaster Movie" and still say it was better, they will see the sequel to the movie they didn't like anyways because they're retarded. To quote Terrence Man from Field of Dreams "People will come Ray, people will most definitely come."* Luckily now (because you studios are listening to us nerds cutting edge spacemen) the movies are good and even more people are coming because the films aren't just flashy things, they're flashy things with substance.

*In this quote Terrence Mann is me and Ray Kinsella is movie studios.

So while these offenses seem to be on their way out, I must say my favourite thing about this new breed of comic book adaptation is by far the treatment of the characters.

Let me lay something on the ground for you. I pretty much hate the Spider-Man movies. They are for kids, by kids. Wait, no that didn't make sense, they are just for kids. Ok so, maybe they're not the worst, in fact the main reason I hate them is the way Spider-Man was not really a character I could identify with despite the situations he was put in that were obviously written so that I would. Poor writing? Poor acting? Poor directing? I'm inclined to believe it's a combination of all 3. It doesn't say much that by the end of the trilogy I felt the 60's version and the 90's FOX Kids version had more depth and likability than Toby Macguire and Sam Raimi's brutal big screen wiener. This all seems to be turning around however because of great scripts (David Goyer), actors treating the roles with respect (Heath Ledger) and directors who want to say something rather than just put a summer blockbuster together to make some cash (Chris Nolan).

Really I'm just happy our beloved protagonists are no longer just cliche spewing cartoon characters. Hopefully this trend continues and we will see a lot more of our favourite comic book heroes and villains getting treated like real characters thanks in no small part to the aforementioned Heath Ledger, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer of TDK, and also to John Favreau & Robert Downey Jr. of Iron Man and sort of to Ed Norton from The Incredible Hulk.

Speaking of TDK, yo remember tapes?

Wow I just read over all that and I have to say my grade 12 English teachers were pretty right on, my awful writing lacks direction and coherence. Sorry for being a shit writer guys, DEAL WITH IT. -AH