Being a comic book fan for most of my life, I was of course thrilled when the characters I knew began popping up in live action films. Were they perfect? No, but a couple of them sure came close, because they were excellent.
AS a comic fan, I, like so, so many of my brethren, can get very picky about how our characters—and their most acclaimed stories— are presented on film. It’s of course up to each fan as to where they fall on the Anal-Retentive Scale, or ARS. Where they draw the line on what is and is not acceptable. Some examples…
1978’s Superman. I was 16 when it came out and I went to the theater at least 4 times to see it. I think the stage in your life in which you watch something has a bearing on it too. Back in ‘78, I was sometimes struggling to get through the first hour because I wanted to see Supes in action and get the all inspiring John Williams theme kicking in big time. In the decades that followed, I appreciated the lead up more and more. The campy elements—mostly Ned Beatty’s Otis, was the low point, but the rest of the movie was so spectacular, I could overlook that. That was the beginning of what would eventually become the Code.
‘89 Batman was a glorious comic come to life, and we all kinda looked the other way when he started killing guys, even indirectly. The subsequent ‘90’s Bat films got worse with each film.
2000’s X-men had unrecognizable costumes on, but since they’d had matching costumes on in the past, and they were a team, fairly easy to look past that.
But it was 2002’s Spider-man that caused a dilemma for the anal-retentive fan. Director Sam Raimi was a huge Spider-man fan growing up and his love for old school Marvel and Spidey was evident. Which made it all the more confusing when he gave Peter Parker bio-webshooters.
This was indeed a controversy, because in the comics, genius student Parker, after getting his powers, *created* mechanical web shooters, with which to swing around the city. To this day, I don’t know if Raimi has ever really explained his reasoning on the change, but frankly, the decision was baffling. If he just thought it might make sense to add the ability? If so, he must have known the jokes would come about where he realistically *would* be squirting webs out of, yada yada.
But here’s the thing— as “wrong” as the bio-web shooters were, they did add some interesting twists, and bottom line, the movie was just so good, the major complaint became a minor gripe. This was born my code, my mantra, what have you:
“As long as the quality of the movie exceeds the deviation from the source material, I’m good.”
Spider-man and Spider-man 2 even more so, were so, so good, that I had to chuck away the complaint. And in 2, the bio-web shooters actually played a larger part in the narrative, so I think I see where Sam was going. We sometimes forget that a filmmaker has to approach a film far differently than a writer and artist approach a monthly comic book series.
Sometimes, a film does not exactly meet the requirements of the code. 2005’s Fantastic Four gave us some good representations of Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny, but their utter failure to give us even a moderately decent Dr. Doom or Galactus, permanently puts both films in the “pretty good/okay” ranking. Saddling Doom with a bad actor and turning the big G into a cosmic storm is just way too much of a deviation for what semblance of quality we got otherwise.
Jumping to 2006’s X-men: The Last Stand, this was a bizarre one. It told the tale of Dark Phoenix, but it was completely different from the comics, and the first time I saw it, I hated it for that reason. My knee-jerk reaction took me far away from the code, as the deviation was off the charts, and there were certain story beats which prompted a lot of WTF reactions from me.
But after I unclenched a bit, certain truths landed. First, the comic version of Dark Phoenix was one of the biggest epics in the history of comics. But it was also a story spanning 8 issues of the main story, plus an additional year and a half of subtle build up.
There was no way on earth that one film, even with a small amount of build up from the one before, could pack everything into one film, so they went another direction. And in later rewatched, I came to appreciate why they did what they did.
Years later, Fox tried again with Dark Phoenix, and all in all, that too, is a good film, but although a tiny bit closer to the comic, they backed off giving us a climactic and comic accurate battle on the moon, but they had their reasons. Either way, DP is not considered a classic.
Instances such as these have shaped the way I view these films to a certain extent, now realizing certain things don’t have to be comic accurate. If they can accomplish this, and do it well, excellent! Deadpool & Wolverine gave us Wolverine in his actual comic costume for the first time in a quarter century. And people went WILD when he put on the cowl.
Yet in the first Avengers movie, they tried the comic accurate Cap outfit… and it, especially the cowl, didn’t quite work—but they tried.
In Avengers Infinity War, I know at least one person who had a big problem with Steve Rogers not having that white star on his chest. But in that film, he was not Captain America. He went by either Steve or even “Captain”, but he gave up the title of Captain America, along with the shield and the star at the end of Civil War. An important statement, him blacking out the star. But in-story reasons for those small things, no matter how valid will not always satisfy the larger comic book fan. Everyone draws the line at a different mark.
But the images, stories and characters we’re raised with, that imprint certain things so indelibly in our minds, that sometimes, it’s hard to shake. But that’s where the Multiverse comes in. When they serve up an infinite variety of alternate varieties, it changes the rules a bit. Makes. Certain things not only become a bit more acceptable, but also more intriguing at times.
Going back to Spider-man——when they rebooted the franchise to feature the Andrew Garfield version, it was so soon after the Maguire run ended, and we had to see the origin again, it felt like a drag, regardless of the movie’s quality. Just too soon, imo, to throw yet another Spidey on the pile. Almost as ridiculous as the revolving door of Batmen in the ‘90’s. The MCU has done right by us by giving us good films featuring Tom Holland’s Spider-man, and the Code’s very much in play here even with this being the third version within a decade.
But in Spider-man: No Way Home, they brought all three Peter Parker’s together, and for me anyway, it grandfathered in, or made all of it acceptable. It felt less like a corporation just churning out more and never ending versions of the same hero, and more like the realization that all this time, we were peering through a dimensional vale at how these heroes came to be in other realities.
It felt like a sort of vindication.
Of course all this still IS a big, soulless corporation churning out more and more crap… but when they hire certain guys such as Kevin Fiege and Michael Uslan, who truly love the characters, it becomes couched in a more positive light. One that this old fan can appreciate.
But the whole multiverse angle has open more than a few doors and made things that much more acceptable. My final example is Fantastic Four: First Steps.
You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger FF fan than me. In past blogs, I’ve gone on and on about how wonderful the film was, and one of the most engaging, magical superhero films I’ve ever seen. I seriously think I have to rank it in the top five MCU films ever, and the top ten of all superhero films period.
Yes, there were a couple nit-picky bits, but only if you judge them by the standards of the old comics, and yeah, those old memories are hard to shake, but considering the film takes place on a completely different Earth (818), they’re easily swept away. The minor decisions at odds with the comics are all acceptable within the story being told in the film.
For example, Ben’s attire. For most of my life, in the comics, the Thing usually just had his trunks on when in a fight. That’s just the way it was. But in the movie, he wears the costume. It worked for him in the context of the story, so I had no problem accepting it.
A big part of the story featured the world keeping the lights off to power up a teleportation device. Ben, who’s always been covered in an organic rock like substance, stop shaving with his rock sander to pitch in on the power saving. He grew a beard over the next few months because of it. No big deal. I prefer him without it and I would assume he’ll go back to shaving, but that, like the costume, worked for me in the context of the story.
I look forward to Avengers: Doomsday next year, as that, along with Secret Wars the year after, will bring the Multiverse Saga to a close. While on one hand, it’s presented us with interesting variants of all our favorite characters, but at the same time, I’ll be okay with shutting the door on the whole thing and moving forward to what comes next.
I can unclench, sit back, and enjoy the ride. Just make sure the quality is there…
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