Man of Steel (There Be Spoilers)

[Tenzhi]

Yeah, well, sticking with DC's universe has done so well with the Superman series past Superman 1, as well as Green Lantern, Jonah Hex, and that atrocity of atrocities, Supergirl.. *shudders*.  Oh, wait, Catwoman.  No, I mean Steel.  Even Watchmen didn't do as well as they'd have liked.  And that was as close a direct adaptation as you can ask, near as I've heard.  (Fantastic movie, ya ask me, though.)

Contextually it seems like you would be listing off movies that stuck to the source material, but most of those didn't.  It's like we have two sarcastic sentiments at war here: "They've done so well sticking to the source material" and "sticking to the source material has done so well". 

I haven't seen Steel, so I'm gonna call Catwoman the worst offender at source material deviation as it seemed to need the DC license about as much as Maximum Overdrive needed the Marvel license.

[Battlechimp]

When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?
When are you going to do Justice League?

Here, Batman, Superman, same movie.  Now shut up so we can figure out a story.

I personally think that it will take the WB so long to actually get a JLA movie out that by the time they do the general public will be going "They just ripped off the characters from the Squadron Supreme movie Marvel did in 2018" :-)

[Magus Prime]

One thing Whedon confirmed is that Quicksilver will be in the next Avengers movie which kind of steals the Flash's thunder or it will at least make it hard for the DC movies to make super speed look cool on their terms when we will have already seen Pietro treading things up at Mach 7 in Avengers 2.

[Golden Girl]

Well, as ComicCon just showed us, even when DC has a potential show-stealing announcement of a Superman/Batman team-up, Marvel still finds new ways to run rings round them and get all the headlines

[Tenzhi]

One thing Whedon confirmed is that Quicksilver will be in the next Avengers movie which kind of steals the Flash's thunder or it will at least make it hard for the DC movies to make super speed look cool on their terms when we will have already seen Pietro treading things up at Mach 7 in Avengers 2.

Only Mach 7?  That'd be a leisurely pace for a proper Flash.  It's a good deal faster than Quicksilver could run last I paid him any attention, though - as I recall he was topping out at the speed of sound back then.  Good on him.

[Mantic]

One thing Whedon confirmed is that Quicksilver will be in the next Avengers movie which kind of steals the Flash's thunder or it will at least make it hard for the DC movies to make super speed look cool on their terms when we will have already seen Pietro treading things up at Mach 7 in Avengers 2.

Quicksilver is not that interesting a character. His design is mediocre in terms of recognizability (can any real live actor sport that signature shock of hair, btw, or will he not even have that going for him?. If not associated with Magneto and the Scarlet Witch, I think he'd have faded away with all the other bronze age Marvel third-stringers. He won't be any more interesting as an "also ran" in an Avengers movie.

The Flash has already been onscreen, too, at least the small one.

The real problem with DC is that nobody working on these properties really seems to care for them. They're treated like vehicles for the egos of creators who have "better" ideas, rather than celebrated for how awesome they are in themselves. Marvel has been going the other way. Successful or otherwise, none of their big movies have been about showcasing any director's unique vision, so much as about bringing the characters to the screen and building up the franchise. Warner does not appear to have faith in their properties, and letting the likes of Jim Lee run the actual comic business shows they think of that medium the same way.

[Codewalker]

Even Watchmen didn't do as well as they'd have liked.  And that was as close a direct adaptation as you can ask, near as I've heard.  (Fantastic movie, ya ask me, though.)

Watchmen was very well done, about the closest you can get putting a comic book on screen. I didn't care too much for the changed ending (it has some serious logic flaws), but other than that it was excellent. Even certain shots looked exactly like live-action version of iconic panels.

The problem is that the source material itself doesn't have a very wide appeal. It's a dark, gritty story about flawed characters in imperfect situations with no clear way out. Very adult-oriented, no happy endings. If they were expecting it to be a box-office blockbuster then somebody was fooling themselves.

I'm still glad they made it, though.

[JaguarX]

Watchmen was very well done, about the closest you can get putting a comic book on screen. I didn't care too much for the changed ending (it has some serious logic flaws), but other than that it was excellent. Even certain shots looked exactly like live-action version of iconic panels.

The problem is that the source material itself doesn't have a very wide appeal. It's a dark, gritty story about flawed characters in imperfect situations with no clear way out. Very adult-oriented, no happy endings. If they were expecting it to be a box-office blockbuster then somebody was fooling themselves.

I'm still glad they made it, though.

yeah. My favorite comic based movie. Not all cheesy or look like they forced some dark angle.

Kind of like what could be reality in the real world if people took up the mask. At first they probably will be praised then eventually called vigilantes and etc. and not liked very much and it's a decent showing that a hero doesn't need to always be some cheesy eat your Wheaties type dude or some mental killing machine that kill for revenge. Some just have a cynical view of the world, some a bright feel lonely and like they are surrounded by idiots, some are depressed, some refuse to give up (like here the Rorschachs, regardless of what "the man" says), some are aging and retired, some locked away for life, some got their cape stuck in a door and gunned down and was a corporate image hero, and one have actual true super powers  but seem to be losing touch with humanity.

Humans are not perfect nor can all problems be solved in a nice neat bow on top manner. Actually majority of life's (world's) problems cant be solved in a nice neat bow on top happy ending manner.

[Rust]

My problems with Watchmen stem more from Miller in general. The man gave the comic industry a shot in the arm, but I think the success of Miller's initial work tainted the medium.

Superheroics are supposed to be escapist fantasy. A world that is simpler, easier to define. When I was growing up, those stories bored me to tears and I wanted drama and action and heroes that weren't afraid to get their hands dirty if they needed to. I saw no problem with Batman killing Joker's henchmen or shoving a stick of dynamite down a lackey's pants and smiling as they died.

As I've gotten older, my knowledge of the world around me has broadened and then I turn to Comics to escape the day to day grind only to find the characters I grew up with there dealing with much the same - even worse situations.

My three favorite heroes growing up were Darkhawk, Iron Man, and The Green Goblin (Phil Urich). Yeah, I was a Marvel guy.

Darkhawk was a long time backburner hero who was unceremoniously killed and the source of his powers utterly destroyed after being corrupted by an evil force.

Phil Urich - the Heroic Green Goblin - was transformed into a raving psychopath and the new Hobgoblin

And Iron Man...well. I could rattle on about Tony Stark's descent into character assassination that Marvel could only cure via explosive amnesia, but for me his end came much earlier then that. In a "Christmas" issue where New York is threatened by a Terrorist plot (This was circa 2001 or 2002) to detonate a nuclear device delivered via submarine.

Iron Man catches wind of the plot and proceeds to ram into the Sub...while it is submerged. We get a two page spread of Iron Man erupting through several bulkheads of the sub, with water filling in behind him as terrified crew only begin to comprehend their destruction. Iron Man then attempts to disarm the nuke (Coincidentally, he did this with ease back in the Early 90s when he fought the Military Armor gone Rogue Firepower), but cannot and is at the end of the issue saved by a literal Angel (Not the X-Man, the Heavenly Host variety).

So yeah. Given how prior to this, the taking of a life was something Tony Stark was fundamentally unwilling to do (and something which destroyed him in the few cases it did happen), watching him brazenly sentence an entire ship of people to die only to be delivered from death itself by literal Divine Intervention...


So yeah. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of Miller's legacy or what his work being used as the announcement for this Batman/Superman film might entail. All I will say is I am seriously considering picking up Golden and Silver Age trades...because the Modern Comic Scene has no merit to me any longer. I don't want to watch imperfect people make the best of a series of bad choices or be like "real people if they put on the mask".

I want my icons, ideals, and role models. The reason I adored Captain America is because he was the ideal. Steve Rogers was not "darkened", he was his Golden Age Persona through and through, and I loved it. It gave me hope for Super Heroes again. That it doesn't have to be about the Kick-Asses and Watchmen, there is room for hope for a better tomorrow, that men of good character still do exist and are still given over by fate to great purpose and deeds.

I miss the age of Heroes.

[Arnabas]

Quicksilver is not that interesting a character. His design is mediocre in terms of recognizability (can any real live actor sport that signature shock of hair, btw, or will he not even have that going for him?. If not associated with Magneto and the Scarlet Witch, I think he'd have faded away with all the other bronze age Marvel third-stringers. He won't be any more interesting as an "also ran" in an Avengers movie.

The Flash has already been onscreen, too, at least the small one.

The real problem with DC is that nobody working on these properties really seems to care for them. They're treated like vehicles for the egos of creators who have "better" ideas, rather than celebrated for how awesome they are in themselves. Marvel has been going the other way. Successful or otherwise, none of their big movies have been about showcasing any director's unique vision, so much as about bringing the characters to the screen and building up the franchise. Warner does not appear to have faith in their properties, and letting the likes of Jim Lee run the actual comic business shows they think of that medium the same way.

That is EXACTLY how I feel.

[Mental Maden]

My problems with Watchmen stem more from Miller in general. The man gave the comic industry a shot in the arm, but I think the success of Miller's initial work tainted the medium.

Do you mean Moore?

[Rust]

Do you mean Moore?

I do. I get them confused often, which is embarrassing as all get out. You should also see how crazy I can sound when I mix up Harlen Ellis with Warren Ellis.

[Golden Girl]

I miss the age of Heroes.

Eventually, they will make a Superman movie again.

[FatherXmas]

Eventually, they will make a Superman movie again.

And it'll have an origin story.

[Optimus Dex]

The real problem with DC is that nobody working on these properties really seems to care for them. They're treated like vehicles for the egos of creators who have "better" ideas, rather than celebrated for how awesome they are in themselves. Marvel has been going the other way. Successful or otherwise, none of their big movies have been about showcasing any director's unique vision, so much as about bringing the characters to the screen and building up the franchise. Warner does not appear to have faith in their properties, and letting the likes of Jim Lee run the actual comic business shows they think of that medium the same way.

This is the problem at DC. It's more about the artists than the character .

[fdbryant3]

I do. I get them confused often, which is embarrassing as all get out. You should also see how crazy I can sound when I mix up Harlen Ellis with Warren Ellis.

I wouldn't be.  Personally I hold them responsible for what went wrong with comics in the 90's and certain extent still going on today.

[Mantic]

I wouldn't be.  Personally I hold them responsible for what went wrong with comics in the 90's and certain extent still going on today.

It's just wrong to lump Miller with Moore.

Frank Miller is practically the opposite of Alan Moore. Even when Miller was Marvel's darling, the literati fan elite (represented by the likes of Comics Journal) were not fans, because his work was essentially "pulp," in the tradition of noir (on the less respected side, too, where Mickey Spillane resided, not the dry, snobby end with Raymond Chandler) and even a bit of grindhouse cinema, where degraded women found their claws and came back strong. You could tell he actually liked the superheroics (throwing ninjas around by the hundreds, while playing up the overblown melodrama of Electra, DD, and Bullseye in a style that, if adapted faithfully to film, would look like Tarantino's Kill Bill).

Those same snobs who openly hated superhero comics across the board fell in love with Alan Moore. No wonder: he was one of them.

Alan Moore himself clearly hated the American superhero genre and everything it ever represented (before he came along). From MiracleMan (MarvelMan) onward, he did nothing but trash them, though being all about spinning himself as the great maestro, he sold that trash(ing) under the label "deconstruction." Worse, he's a more pure misogynist. Where Miller seems fascinated with prostitutes and abused women, he always has them come out the other side more powerful and taking the control back. But when Moore tears down a woman his focus is on the degradation, and he leaves her broken. Telling, I think, of which man is more the feminist (and of the two, only Moore ever even called himself that... brazen liar that he is).

Sure, he tried to mask his hatred in the '90s, by misdirection befitting the magician he fancies himself. Pairing up with one of the most over-the-top pop superhero artists around to parody Superman. But he couldn't help being himself even then, so there's plenty of hate for both America and Americana in the pages of Supreme, too.