I Was Twelve Years Old in 1964

When I began collecting things back in the sixties, it wasn’t possible to collect everything I liked. You could collect books, or magazines or comic books based on movies or TV series, but you couldn’t collect the actual shows. Until the video recorder came along in the mid-’70s, I really had no decisions to make about whether to make any permanent commitment to saving anything in that area. When that day did come along that I had the means to do so, though, the price of videotapes ($25.95 each!) coupled with my general preference for TV series vs. movies, made selecting which movies I would record and keep fairly easy. Ordinary dramas, comedies or adventure movies wouldn’t cut it. They would either have to be perennial favorites I’d watched and enjoyed many times, or the equivalent of TV series (the Marx Brothers movies were some of the first that I went after), or when I could find them, anything I considered complemented my longtime affection for comic books.

I had heard and read a lot of good things about it before seeing it, but about two minutes into the recent great live-action/CGI experiment Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, I realized I was thinking, “this is a comic book movie.” Not a comic-book movie, a comic book movie. Since this was an internal monologue, I knew exactly what I meant, but I realize that may not be an obvious distinction (even italicized), so a definition is in order.

“Comic book” derived from the newspaper terms “comic strip” or “comics,” also known as the “funnies,” descriptive names which developed because of the singular intent of every early franchise prior to 1925 when action strips first showed up. Since the newspaper comics existed nearly thirty years before anyone thought of collecting them in a stapled, regularly published magazine format, it never really defined the contents of what comprised most comic books (except perhaps during the ‘50s, when Dell‘s humor comics dominated the market), but it stuck nonetheless. It is rather unfortunate that a new name for them never developed in the early ‘40s, when it was particularly inappropriate. Cartoonists and publishers of the era held newspaper comics in such high esteem and so superior to what they were creating that I’m certain they never thought twice about it. But in virtually all mainstream writing since their inception (until, perhaps, the last decade), “comic book” has always connoted something childish, slapdash, less than real, less than convincing, less than adult. This has become so permeating that modern publishers favor “graphic novel,” attributed to Will Eisner, whose early efforts in that area certainly had more in common with novels than comic books. Nowadays, since anything published in regular comic-book format can also be reprinted in book form, it’s developed into a grandiose and pretentious phrase used by companies who want to remove the stigma of the real term. ( I think the phrase “graphic novel” should only be affixed to a story which is published in one chunk in a square-bound book format, not serialized in saddle-stitched magazines then reprinted as a book. But that‘s just me.)

When I describe something as being like a comic book, it is in no way meant to be pejorative. For me the descriptive use of “comic book” is something that is not only good, but in some ways purer than the norm. Better, in fact, than an ordinary movie.

Admittedly, it’s sometimes difficult to tell when movies based on things published as comic books turn up as something quite indistinguishable from every other movie. So many modern-day films based on “graphic novels” probably could have been originally written as movies and not turned out any different than they did. Things like Ghost World or Road To Perdition don’t say “comic book” to me at all. A true “comic book” movie could never have been developed from scratch without adherence to a roster of conventions and character types that developed in the genre.

Things like Sky Captain are unusual. They don’t occur too often, and their results are usually disappointing because they come into being with no prior history of affection to smooth over the rough spots. On occasion, of course, they surprise me enough to emerge as something you wish had been a comic book so that you could have had that longtime emotional investment.

And of course, since they didn‘t develop in a vacuum, “comic book” is a broad, all-inclusive term that absorbs situations and characters derived from or based upon ancient legends, old-time pulp magazines, radio shows, adventure comic strips, some cartoons, and a lot of ‘50s live-action television. Zorro, The Shadow, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon, The Phantom and The Lone Ranger are all “comic book” movies no matter their original source. (Instead of “comic book” movies, these could all also be categorized as “super-hero” movies. While this seems, in some ways, closer to the mark, it also connotes a specific type of heroes, one usually gifted with supernatural powers. Not all of the characters in question fit that description. Thus the necessity of the more general term.) It’s sometimes easier to define what does than what doesn’t fit the category; some Tarzan movies (and TV series) are, some aren’t. The Lara Croft movies are comic book movies, as were the Indiana Jones movies (though the Young Indiana Jones TV series was not, even though it was made into a very nice comic-book series.) It’s often harder to define whether a science-fiction movie or TV series is or isn’t, and it doesn‘t necessarily have anything to do with whether it later became a comic book. Star Trek is, in most of its forms (though Deep Space 9, which was often all talk with little heroics, not unlike the often dull Babylon-5). Star Wars was, in its first three original installments at least. Doctor Who is, especially the most recent incarnation. Sometimes the conventions show up in the oddest places: The Natural, which I doubt many would even consider as being in the same category, is very nearly a comic book movie in its fulfillment of the aspects I consider to be endemic to the genre.

I realize that these definitions are generally adventure genre-based; most comedy films or TV series derived from comics have been based on comic strips, and most of those were made in the thirties through fifties. As a comic-book collector, viewing a comic book movie is like being a fan of the beloved hometown team and instantly emotionally connecting without thinking. When I see a Blondie movie or the Dennis The Menace TV series or Hazel, or Addams Family), they don’t immediately trigger that home-team feeling, probably because their very realistic trappings don‘t differentiate them much from movies or series not based on comics. Doesn’t mean I don’t like them, but they don’t instantly engender pride for first loving their source.

Anyway, “comic book” movies stand out from the mainstream adventure movies for a whole slew of reasons, and when they get them all right, when they line up a good story with appropriate casting and with all the elements that I look for in “comic book” movies, the entire experience is so far above what I experience when seeing a non-“comic book” movie that I’m amazed. Every time. The best ones have moments in them, during which I find myself actually wiping tears from my eyes because they’d gotten it right.

That’s quite important to me. If, at no point in the movie (or TV series) I make no such emotional connection, it falls to the ordinary level, getting no extra points for being based on a comic book. This occurs more often than not, sadly. Even eliminating those adaptations I’ve hated, it still includes things that have been successful at the box office or in the ratings. Enough things were wrong, for example, with the 1989 Batman that despite its strengths, it holds no special place in my heart. And though I liked The Incredible Hulk TV series, so much was changed from its original incarnation that it never actually rose to the “comic book” level for me.

Though the subjects of comic book movies must of course differ from franchise to franchise, they do have many things in common. First and foremost, whether they use them or not, the hero must have an operating or code name of some sort. This can be as small as a nickname (“Flash” Gordon or “Doc” Savage) or as great as a name which fully supplants the real name (Lone Ranger or Have Gun Will Travel’s Paladin). There is usually a secret identity, or at least one which belies the personality taken when in action. (Indiana Jones was studious and professorial in his classrooms, intentionally quite the opposite of his field identity.) And all of them, no matter how minimal or subtle, wear a distinctive costume. This can be as little as a particular jacket and hat, any kind of mask or disguise, or as much as a full costume. (Super-powers are not necessary, but they are appreciated.) Removing any of these aspects if they were a part of the original version of the character weakens the movie or show for me, especially if the change seems arbitrary or lame—the result of either thinking the change is necessary to make the character seem more realistic, or simply based on the esthetic whim of the producer, director of costume designer.

In cases of non-original characters adapted to movies or TV, I am fully capable of appreciating something which deviates from the source material’s plot points. Tweaking storylines or origin details to either telescope events, combine origins to save time, or alter details to make them easier to accept are, sometimes, desirable. Obviously, though, the fewer the changes, the better I like it. Unacceptable are full, 180-degree deviations from what anyone who’s bought a ticket or tuned in would expect; it’s awful enough when they do it in the comic books themselves. Recent examples of this are rife on the WB network, following the radical reworking of Superboy on Smallville. Most obvious was Birds Of Prey, which not only deviated from the group of characters used in the comic book, it abandoned their costumes and operating names as well, making the whole thing indistinguishable from any other Charlie’s Angels knock-off. They were also responsible for the rather boring 2004 Tarzan series (which dumped almost everything from the original) and the unwatchably dreadful pilot for their remake of The Lone Ranger. (A similar reduction of Aquaman as a series to be called Mercy Reef has had some curiosity-fueled pilot-downloading activity on iToons, and will probably appear on the sixth season Smallville DVD. But it probably resembled no previously published version of the character, so my enthusiasm for it would be marginal at best.) Except for Smallville, each of these has failed to stick around, and hopefully, their lack of success will cause the WB’s replacement, the CW, from encouraging anything similar to be done to any further comic book franchises. But, since Smallville succeeded despite trashing every aspect of the Superman legend, I doubt it.

Most of the big-screen adaptations of late have taken far more of the originals than that, though in almost every instance the people charged with translating the characters’ appearance have chosen to alter the costumes to their own taste. This actually dates back to the ’30s and ’40s, when the filmmakers were either unable to figure out how to turn the printed version into three-dimensional clothing, or were simply unable to afford their creation. The Christopher Reeve Superman costume was pretty accurate, though the version used in the subsequent Superboy was probably the closest to the Curt Swan comic-book version. About the only recent fully faithful adaptations of heroes’ attire that I can think of were The Rocketeer (about the only time that the costume used was actually always intended to be made out of leather), The Shadow (about the only instance of a heavy overcoat being justified for a costumed hero) and for the most part, Spider-Man. The Spider-Man costume’s major difference was the translation of the black web pattern from the comics into a reflective silver which looked black from a distance anyway. It was certainly close enough for me.

But take almost every other hero’s costume and you see that, time after time, moviemakers will come up with something both pointlessly off-model, and worse, less memorable. None of the Batman costumes that have ever been used, dating back to the serials of the ‘40s and including the Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney and Christian Bale versions, have ever done justice to the original. (The worst result, of course, is that the sequentially more horrible designs of each movie have served to allow the dozens of people drawing the comics in the years since to alter the real costume almost beyond recognition—stripping it of its coloring, its contours, its trunks, and turning the utility belt into a ridiculous giant multi-pocketed purse worthy of Captain Kangaroo.) The movies also added rubberized body armor to the costume, an absurd addition which violates the hero in so many ways as to be completely objectionable. Like the action characters that don heavy leather costumes or jackets—anyone who’s ever worn a leather jacket will tell you that if they have to perform any kind of physical task they would first remove said jacket!—a Batman straightjacketed by body armor would be as useless as a circus acrobat wearing a suit of armor. And the whole point of the comic-book Batman is that despite having no such protection, his bravery and skills allow him to manage to avoid being killed or injured by gunfire or other weapons—or better, to go into each fray without fear of harm. Apply all of the above to the costumes worn by Daredevil in the movie of the same name; for a stealthy character, nothing spoils things more than your leather pants squeaking as you approach your quary! The same for the leather clothing worn by all of the X-Men. It just makes no sense. Besides making them incredibly drab and ordinary looking, all leather can serve to do is restrict their mobility. So not only does it not improve their look, it means it isn’t even practical. Just ask the actors who have to suffer the heat they generate inside them while filming! The reason given in the X-Men’s instance was that they were embarrassed to dress them in their comic-book clothing (there‘s that comic book stigma again), and that they didn‘t want to use Spandex. As if that were the only option!

Nope, there’s no real logic in all this, except for one very important, and perhaps obvious, motivation. Licensing money. Since Star Wars turned the ancillary market for movie and TV tie-in toys into a billion-dollar return for 20th Century-Fox and George Lucas, every subsequent big-screen project with any potential to be turned into action figures, toys, or games or anything else has made certain that the studios or the producers or directors get a large piece of the licensing of products generated by that movie or TV series. As an example, Bryan Singer’s deal with Warner Bros. and DC nets him a nice little pocketful of change for anything based on Superman Returns. Think about it, though; if you look around stores these days you’ll see dozens of things from towels to cereal boxes to alarm clocks to sleeping bags decorated with Superman figures, logos or the Superman “S.” Which of these products does Bryan Singer collect on, aside from those which actually say “Superman Returns” on them? Exactly. Those which feature that distinctive, dark-red version of the Superman costume, or the distinctive redesign of the Superman “S” are easily sorted out from the standard Superman merchandise which features the traditional merchandise. Aha! Thus we explain all these alterations, from the bland and generic Lone Ranger costume from Legend of the Lone Ranger to the distinct version of the Fantastic Four costumes used in the 2005 film. Ignore the reasons given by the directors or the costume designers in those “Making Of” specials on HBO; it’s all about the money.

Yet this doesn’t explain why so many of the redesigns aren’t better. Somehow, the desire to make seams more visible and material more “interesting” visually (vis a vis the TV Flash) appears to be a priority. (Anyone who follows Marvel’s “Ultimate” line knows this trend all too well; removal of the simple in place of design clutter delineates the look of that line.) Thus, the current Superman Returns costume features an “S” symbol and boots which are festooned with tiny “S”s to reflect for the camera; the Phantom’s shirt is watermarked with skulls and his shorts no longer have those gauche diagonal stripes, Batman’s mask is an umoving sculpture much too large for his head, and the Flash wears a bewilderingly stiff costume that looks like it’s made of a cross between velour and flannel. And, no doubt, similar alterations will be made for the upcoming movie costumes worn by Iron Man and Wonder Woman. (Iron Man in the comics has gone through so many redesigns, most of them pretty hideous, that I’m completely sympathetic to the movie makers in having to choose the best of the worst rather than go back to the classic look of the ’60s and ’70s. Wonder Woman will definitely not be wearing her trademarked spangled shorts.) Even when they’re not deliberately placing their own stamp on all the existent costumes, the movie and TV designers still find it virtually impossible to create memorable “comic book”-type costumes: M.A.N.T.I.S., Darkman, the Black Scorpion and Catwoman, each beginning from scratch, came up with nothing remarkable at all. Their general lack of color is what’s bewildering; the needs of a movie or TV show are not dissimilar to comics, and the shorthand of the costume is helped by making the coloring instantly recognizable so that no matter what size or setting the character is in you can tell who‘s who. Tellingly, Pixar’s animated Incredibles featured the best original costumes of the past twenty-five years, brightly colored and with minimal detail (partly necessary for animation purposes, perhaps, but also the easiest to “read”). Another pretty good one was the alien suit worn by Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) as the Greatest American Hero. One of my recent favorite original hero costumes is the British ThermoMan from the comedy series My Hero; it’s rather a shame to see such a good design “wasted” on a joke character. (Another old sitcom also featured a pretty nice costume: Mork & Mindy’s Orkan uniform that Mork wore at the end of each episode.) Tellingly, these all feature red as their predominant color: bright red, that is. Nothing is more thrilling and at the same time reassuring than bright red. It’s worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, from King, to Sgt. Preston and Benton Fraser of Due South. It worked with the original versions of the Superman cape, shorts and boots. It certainly works for Santa Claus. I think this fact alone may have affected audience reaction to Superman Returns. Besides the truly awful cut of the costume (speedo shorts, a cape that‘s oddly attached to the shirt‘s collar), and an odd alteration to the belt to add another “S“ where none was needed, Superman Returns reduces the familiar blue, red and yellow to blue, maroon and yellow to no good effect; the darkened color is not reflective of any darkening of the character. In fact, it looks like the attempts at red in old colorized Ted Turner-owned black and white movies! As usual, the boots look as if they’re made of leather or rubber, and not whatever the rest of the costume is made of. And like the recent WB Superman cartoons, they also stripped the cape of its all-yellow “S” because director Bryan Singer, who evidently never read a Superman comic, believed that it wasn’t present in the comics, despite its incorporation circa 1939 (and ignored the well-publicized fact that it was only present on the Christopher Reeve costume because Reeve insisted that it match the comics). Oddly, despite at least a million drawings of him in nearly 70 years of publication, it was felt that a costume designer who had probably never drawn anything more exotic than haute couture was a better judge of the best look for the costume of a character never meant to specifically appeal to women. And this happens again, and again, and again. Subtle change to the original design would be, you’d think, the most desirable thing to ensnare the comic-book fans of the character, the very fans they court every year at the comic conventions. But it doesn’t happen often. I’d have more hope that this trend will cease (especially with all the in-the-works Marvel movies) if Spider-Man—despite all its impressive success—didn’t seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

But when it works, and it does on occasion, you forget about it, at least a little. And for me, it’s a way to feel like I’m still a fan of the comics, even if it’s been decades since I’ve been able to read them with any degree of enjoyment. So thanks to the producers and directors who make that possible, because it keeps me from thinking about how very, very old I’ve become.

And it works in Superman Returns, even with the caveats about the costume. Superman, for better or worse, will always be the first and best example of a great comic-book hero, and my favorite. Despite my fears, Bryan Singer’s alterations to the Superman legend were not drastic enough to diminish my enjoyment of the film, and his 2006 version of the hero is still Superman. It brings the series up to date in much the same way that Batman Begins revived that franchise by eschewing all the sillier aspects of the original series. A specific sequel to the 1978 Superman with numerous allusions to the original (including the original theme music and mention of events which occurred in it), it is in fact also a sequel to Superman II (a fact anyone who may have read the comic-book adaptation or the novelization would not know, since the film’s set-up and concluding scenes are curiously absent), though this is never stated, and pre-film publicity never made it clear. What the film does do is set up the situation for further films in the series quite well, re-establishing Lois, Jimmy and Perry and their relationships with Siperman and Clark Kent. In addition, it introduces Richard White, Perry’s nephew and Lois’s live-in boyfriend, and their son Jason. In another story, Richard would be an unsympathetic hound, but not only is he very hard to dislike, he saves Superman’s life. Thus, when the film’s final twist (admittedly one not unexpected by anyone who first heard about Jason’s existence before the film was released) is revealed, the character conflict is particularly poignant. Superman’s own situation as an adopted son of his loving parents means he is completely sympathetic and unwilling to reveal the truth, thus seemingly dooming him to a solo existence. (Incidentally, for those who have seen the movie and wonder how the whole thing happened, this is where knowledge of the events of Superman II are necessary, otherwise nothing really makes much sense. Trouble is, for those who do remember II, there is also the matter of the final scene of that movie, in which Superman somehow makes Lois forget the events which have just transpired, instead of turning back time as he did in Superman. Clearly, for Lois to have deduced what she did in Superman Returns, Superman must have used his super-hypnotism power—incidentally, one which he was shown to have in the comics—to erase only Lois’s memory of his dual identity, which is what she specifically asked to be relieved of. She had to remember everything else that happened in II. Because of the chronology of what must have occurred thereafter, the third and fourth original films in the series no longer fit continuity, unless both could be shoved into a small window of time, perhaps only a few months.)

There has been much lip-service given to the “lack” of action during the film, which I think is a completely bogus charge; no, he didn’t punch anybody—but geez, the guy lifted a whole (minor) continent and threw it into space! All I can say is I was never bored, and to me the film (which I’ve seen twice) never seemed to be as long as it actually is. Brandon Routh makes a fine Superman, and I look forward to future movies in which he is able to show a bit more of the joie de vivre I think Superman possesses. Kevin Spacey, despite his protestations, seemed to be channeling Gene Hackman, but the campiness inherent in the original movies is mostly absent. Kate Bosworth is winning as Lois, and the cameos of both Noel Neill and Jack Larson were quite effective. The action sequences, particularly the space shuttle scenes, were remarkable, showing exactly how much improvement special effects have undergone since 1978.

As to why the film did not do business comparable to the two Spider-Man movies, despite almost unanimous press reviews as “outstanding” I have a number of theories. First, some of the editing done to the film (eliminating a whole sequence devoted to seeing the dead planet Krypton) to bring it down to 2 hours-plus erased some explanatory scenes which would have made it clearer, for example, that it was the adult Superman crash-landing in the ship he needed to explore the remains of Krypton (in a solar system with a red sun in which he has no powers), and not baby Kal-El; it couldn’t have helped to have people wondering what was happening in the very first scene. Recycled Marlon Brando dialogue from Superman (particularly statements which would mean that Superman was born before the time of Christ) should have been left out. Also, if events in this film would hinge on events from Superman II, it couldn’t have hurt to show those scenes in the intro as well. Besides self-referencing the first film in the series, there are numerous allusions to The Last Temptation of Christ, some of which work better than others; their presence may have offended some viewers, though again, they were allusions and nothing more. It is rather unfortunate that my first thought when I heard what Luthor’s plot was, “we’ve seen this already,” since it turned out to be a much more substantial plot than it was in the original movie. And surely the costume contributed to some fans’ reluctance to support it. I fully expect to see a significant amount of that resistance to disappear when it appears on DVD in a more restored version, and on cable, when numerous showings will emphasize the story’s strengths. If Singer does it right, his second Superman could turn out to be bigger than his first. Aside from the character relationships, we know the second will not be a sequel. And that may be good.