Superhero Films

I’m sorry to disappoint, but I am not writing about anything political or anarchism today. I am writing on something completely off topic. When I was about five or six my we were going to visit my great grandfather ‘Pop’. He lived in the rural backwoods of Ohio. I was growing up in Cleveland Ohio. On the drive my Father stopped at a corner store and picked up two comic books for me to read. One was Captain America and the other was Spiderman. I was addicted. I wore them out. As I got a little older I would get a can of gas from my father to mow the lawn each week. I would then go door to door asking to mow lawns for three dollars. Three dollars could buy quite a few comics back then. Much of my money earned would go straight towards buying comic books. I loved them. I was fascinated. I started drawing superheroes. This impacted my career, I grew up to become an illustrator and graphic designer.

I would daydream about seeing movies about these heroes. It rarely happened. When the Tim Burton Batman movies came out I was beyond excited. It became a huge focus in my life. By the time superhero movies were being made I was an adult. I loved it. It took me back to being that kid again getting lost in those comic books.

I am excited for the superhero summer movie lineup this year. I feel almost hypocritical being the anti-war anarchist anticipating the Captain America film. Thor was my fathers favorite hero when he was young. I loved the Green Lantern. As the movies approach I get nervous and excited. I am mostly fearful that they will be terrible, but I will be there on midnight opening night for many of them. The problem often with these movies is that so many really do not understand how these movies should be made. There is an effort often to make them realistic or believable. There is often a focus on explaining the origin of these impossible characters. Comics were rarely about how these heroes became who they were, and frankly most origin tales were a couple of pages and not all that great of stories.

Comic books were absurd and ridiculous. As Hollywood understands these films should gradually get better. Nobody goes to see movies about people who fly and use superpowers expecting something down to earth. It’s absurd. This should be embraced. Comic books were also a visual medium. This should be a boon to the film makers. Much of the art is so surreal and absurd that it will lend to something visually captivating on screen.

The more film makers attempt to bring these superheroes to a real world and make them believable to a contemporary audience the less impressive they will be. The more the film makers embrace the absurdity and visual extremes of the comics the better films will turn out. Nobody goes to see a movie about people flying in colorful tights because they want a dose of reality. Many comics were in fact the opposite of this. Sure some comics in recent years embraced reality or a ‘dark and gritty’ pallet, but overall most of this stuff was high fantasy. Film makers should embrace what made these stories popular in the first place.

Many comics in the 40′s through the 60′s were not aimed at adults. It was literature for children. There seems to be a desire to get away from that. This is a bad idea. It was successful and memorable aimed at young boys, it should reflect that often. The desire to make every colorful superhero somehow dark and gritty is one that ruins many comic films. Someone like Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel should be embraced as what it was. This is the kind of material that companies like Pixar have made a fortune in selling. Why not embrace that kind of material in a style like Pixar which can embrace the absurdity and the immaturity of the subject matter in a truly successful and unique film?

Far too often it seems that these producers and directors have no idea what the attraction of these characters and stories was. They attempt to fit these stories and characters into molds of other films making it something completely different. If you want to make a great and memorable superhero film then you should really embrace what made it attractive in the first place. The escapism and absurdity that attracted readers to the book can very much be the same attraction that draws an audience to a film. Some get it and some don’t.

I am not going to see a superhero film because I want to see the Matrix or because I want to see some other popular film that is currently the big thing. I go because I want to see the absurd and unreal stories I grew up with. Now that that’s out of my system I’ll try to get back on topic. I hope you can forgive me for that…
I was tempted to go on about what films need to be done and how, because I am convinced I could produce some of the most memorable superhero films of all time, but I’ll spare you from that. Maybe I will get a wild hare up my ass and end up doing it somehow anyway. I’ll see you all on opening night for Thor, Captain America, X-Men and Green Lantern.