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Page 1 of 3 For the past one hundred years, movies have been the darling of American popular culture and for almost that entire time comic books have been the bastard child of that same familial hierarchy. The reasons for this abound, not the least of which was that super-heroes, the primary subject of the most popular comic-books for decades, were so outlandishly sprung from deep-seated neuroses in the male psyche they were almost embarrassing to look upon. Think about it (but not too hard): the classic super-hero wears boots, skin-tight, hide-nothing spandex, a cape and a mask – all of which are colored with more garish abandon than a Christmas tree in a kindergarten. Drag queens wouldn’t dare wear these outfits. Bad drag queens wouldn’t wear these outfits. Captain America had a red, white and blue shield and wings on his head.
The Sub-Mariner wore a green speedo and had wings on his feet. The entire outfit of DC’s Captain Marvel (as opposed to Marvel’s Captain Marvel) was fire engine red, had a little white cape with gold lining and bright gold pirate boots. Huh? Batman, one of the ‘grittier’ and more popular heroes, has pointy ears and a cape and somehow strikes fear into the hearts of hardened criminals instead of gut-crushing laughter. I mean, really? And you know, capes. Just capes period. Especially for somebody who fights for a living? Yeesh.  Of COURSE, I fight monsters and wizards in this outfit. Doesn't everyone? | Underneath comic books there was always a certain porn-y aspect. The guys were built like gods and the women were built like freaks and had gravity defying outfits that were absolutely shameless in the artists’ intent. Elektra chose to fight in that outfit? Really? Or Red Sonja, woman warrior, in a metal bikini barely covering a body a porn star would blush to have? Storm in her dominatrix boots, that is, when she wore anything at all? Vampirella’s outfit was baffling in how it was even supposed to stay on in theory. By comparison, merely practically-painted on outfits like what Batgirl and Ms. Marvel wore, seemed downright tasteful. |
To make matters worse, super-heroes had a tendency to conduct themselves with an air of extreme self-importance. With all his talk of truth, justice and the American way Superman had to fly cuz brother squeaked when he walked. The Silver Surfer used to rail on like Hamlet in panel chewing monologues about being trapped in a world he never made on this island earth. Mothers would be covering the ears of their children to shield them from Dr. Strange’s swearing like a sailor – if they had any idea what “the hoary hosts of Hoggoth” or “the crimson bands of Cyttorak” even were (now Strange had a cape – and a…blouse??? -- hoo boy). And in a century of two world wars, one cold war, several – actually – holocausts, and various civil rights movements, super-heroes were battling likewise comically dressed, self-impressed, funny-talking, hilariously named super-villains such as but certainly not limited to: Brainiac (oooooooh), Baron Zemo (shudder), Magneto, Master of Magnetism (no less), Sinestro (he was sinister – get it?), Mysterio (he was…mysterious?) and Shriek (who was really, really loud). Not to mention of course, the whole slew of bitter med-school dropouts: Dr. Doom, Dr. Octopus, Dr. Destiny, Dr. Impossible, Dr. Alchemy, Dr. Phosphorous, Dr. Angst (ever get that feeling you’re trying too hard?)…to name but a few.
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The Surfer does his best Olivier |
I jest, I mock, I belittle, but the truth of the matter is I was just as enamored of costume do-gooders as anybody I knew and far more than most. (I still own over two thousand comics, not counting Epic, Heavy Metal, Eerie, Creepy and Mad magazines, the Savage Sword of Conan, graphic novels, all of Stan Lee’s origins of Marvel books, various novelizations, video games and will have more when I become rich.) But it’s easy to see why members of the feminine persuasion, or jocks, or more serious-minded individuals, or anybody with a life, largely untouched by the super-hero bug might look askance at those of us who weren’t just into comics but were passionate about comics. The reason for the disconnect runs deeper than you think. Comic books have always been an uncomfortably naked art form. They have a tendency to give concrete shape to what usually manifest as deep-down fantasies, desires and neuroses. They exist right at that place where the id and the ego meet. Comics – stop me if you’ve heard this before – are the almost) naked fantasies of the male psyche. Okay, not to the extent that movies are because they’re well, comics; a relatively tiny portion of the population have actually read them. More importantly, it’s difficult if not impossible for any medium to match the sensual stimulus that movies provide. Despite the pictures, comics are still enjoyed primarily by people who read. They require a certain amount of work on the part of the audience. Movies are magic that capture everybody, morons and geniuses alike, in their dazzling spell. You just sit back and they are done to you. 
| Regardless, I would venture that comic books are closer to movies than any other art form, closer than theatre or literature. The reason is two-fold: one, both mediums are fashioned out of and act directly upon the sub-conscious as well as the intellect. Two, because the prime medium of communication is images, often times the story-telling technique is very similar. It is in exactly this place that movies diverge from plays and books. A comic book is a movie but all the missing frames are provided by the imagination of the reader. If you’ve ever seen a storyboard to a film it looks just like an unfinished comic book. The connection between the darling child and the bastard was not just a natural one but inevitable. Yet the relationship between comic books and movies languished in relative dormancy for years. Why? |
The reasons seem relatively clear. Popular comic books dealt primarily with super-heroes. Until the technology of movies could convincingly portray a man flying it was tough to bring the most dynamic aspect of comics to life in a compelling way. In other words: corn kills box-office. Rightfully so. Super-imposing a guy lying on a table over a screen of clouds floating by only underscored the inherent silliness of the genre. It is one thing to read that crap on your own at home like the other nerds but to go out and have your super-fantasies exposed for everybody to see is another. And then to have them done in such a lame way so that there’s no pay off. Ouch! Can you imagine trying to get laid after taking your girlfriend or wife to another serial of Flash Gordon or Captain Marvel? Not that it couldn’t happen, but it would take a special girl. Thank God, Richard Donner’s Superman: the Movie came out in ’78. I still remember the blurb on the poster: “You’ll believe a man can fly.” And that was it, man, that was the selling point. Audiences all over the world said, “I’ll buy the costume if you can sell the flying.” And they did. I can tell you, I have never been a Superman fan, not then, not now, but the flying scenes in that movie were nothing less than euphoric. On another level, as a comic book fan I understood the greater importance of that movie succeeding. You could take your date to see Superman: the Movie and that made all the difference. It won Academy Awards and everything! All of a sudden, comic book movies had something most comic books themselves never dreamed of as possible: mainstream respect.
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The first cool super-hero movie poster. |
Not that one hit led to a slew of super-hero movies. Flying proved to be the simplest of super-powers to portray. Spinning a web, turning into a man made of rocks, stretching, bursting into flame, etc. proved to be trickier. Luckily, turning into a big, green, super-strong monster was doable and The Incredible Hulk TV show kept Marvel heroes in the mix all by itself and held out the possibility that other heroes somewhere, at some time, might get a worthwhile shot on the big screen. Technology was catching up. You could feel it in the air. Superman 2 was the last great super-hero movie for a long time but there were hints of what was to come: Toxic Avenger, Swamp Thing, Dark Man. When computers blew up in the 90’s, it was only a matter of time: Spawn, Blade – to name a couple. One that should be mentioned separately from the rest was of course, The Crow. More on that later. It took CGI to finally and formally break out the big guns. This brings us to the second seismic shift that had to happen, this time on the comics’ side. Comics had to grow up…relatively speaking. The cheese factor of old super-hero movies was way intense. The old 1966 Batman is hard to sit through if you’re older than six, even to laugh at. It’s just too dumb. Fortunately, things had begun to change that very decade. Marvel Comics had been born and brought in a new age of ‘realistic’ characterizations that would bear real fruit some twenty five or thirty years later. Marvel’s heroes started to have real life problems like paying rent, bills, and a lousy love life and dealing with real life issues like drugs, race and politics (remember when Nixon appeared as Number One of the Secret Empire in Captain America?). They would bicker, lose their temper or do something stupid. In my not-quite-humble-opinion there were then three things that happened to take comics to the next level. One was Heavy Metal magazine which gave artist who would otherwise be comic book artists a venue to present what they really wanted to write and draw (Holy smokes!). The other was Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Finally, there was Frank Miller. 
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