Amph ***OFFICIAL*** Comics Thread

Pour one out for the t-shirt and jeans.

 

Years from now I suspect that Morrison run is going to be the only part of New 52 Superman folks recommend checking out. "But what happens after that run?" the newer fans will ask, and they'll just get mile long stares in reply.

 

Apropos of nothing, I was wondering about comics and adaptation to movies; anybody ever notice when it comes to book adaptations, people get rather uppity about fidelity to the source and most minor changes end up being fairly hotly debated. However, when it comes to live action movie adaptations of comics, aside from, like Sin City and 90% of Watchmen, adaptations of comic superhero stories are really loose. But honestly, I don't really mind. Civil War the movie is pretty darn different from Civil War the comic book, however, it does have a very similar ideological divide and they do crib some specific images of Iron Man v Cap in the climax of the movie. Batman: Dark Knight Returns has basically been adapted twice in two subsequent Batman movies, short version issue 1 & issue 2 are Dark Knight Rises and issue 3 & issue 4 (Well, mostly issue #4) are Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Days of Future Past takes sort of the shape of the original comic arc but does things very, very differently. The Wolverine is an adaptation of Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Wolverine mini but also very different as well. But we haven't really had a straight up superhero adaptation, aside from taking the shape of plots and every once in awhile a specific beat or scene.

Speaking of the 90% accurate Watchmen adaptation, which I think is a very good adaptation of an excellent source, they do take out the fake alien invasion in the end and make it seem like Doctor Manhattan attacked the Earth, which I think makes it slightly less cooler if only because I enjoy how elaborately twisted Ozymandias faux-alien invasion is. However, one thing that they did change in the finale is Nite Owl going off on Ozymandias with the full-on wall slam and his "you haven't saved humanity, you've deformed it, mutilated it!" rant which isn't anywhere in the book at all (Nite Owl just kinda goes with it) but I think it works great in the context of the film.

Yeah the ending of Long Halloween as to who is the Holiday killer is a tad ... muddled even though they flat-out end the book with Gilda directly stating that she was the one who did it. I admit, I'm still not quite sure who did it, and neither does Batman, apparently. World's Greatest Detective got that one wrong!

 

It's because comics are not considered holy literature as compared to books.

 

Ooof, harsh. But probably fair. Aside from Watchmen which got about as close as you can get to straight adaptation and everybody constantly stressed that it had / should / would be like that. But most seem to just take bits and shake it up but if Warner Brothers had "loosely" adapted Harry Potter the same way that Marvel adapts it's comics, people would pitch a fit.

 

In what universe is this forum not plagued by hundreds of pages of debate concerning the adherence of superhero adaptations to the source material, because I kind of want to go there.

 

hahahah, true that. I do notice a lot of that seems to centre around character stuff and worldbuilding as opposed to the plots of the films of superhero adaptations, which seem to get a pass (and I give it a pass too) if they don't go beat-by-beat, scene-by-scene. The movies sort of just take titles, a few key bits, and general plot shape. (Rises is Returns in as much Bane is sort of the mutant leader, which it is also an adaptation of Knightfall too, and Batman retires, comes back, etc.)

 

I think that the prioritization of characters and world-building over specific plot beats probably comes down to the medium itself doing just that - stories get recycled and retold and retconned even in the finished comic books, so those particulars aren't held up as sacred. Books, with some serial fiction exceptions, only undergo that kind of evolution and revision prior to release.

 

What about the adaption of Spawn? 70% 80%????????

 

Like with prose novels, comics are adapted to work in a cinematic setting. There's only been few film adaptations of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" novel that were close to the original novel. James Bond's novels have all varied in their adaptation to the big screen, with the exception of "The Spy Who Loved Me", the only one that was changed upon the request of Ian Flemming as he was not happy with his novel. The changes to the Alex Cross films from the novels. And then of course you have adaptations of stage plays like the works of Shakespeare that are either fairly close, or wildly different.

Hollywood doing it with comic book films is no different.

In the case of "Watchmen", I think that was more appropriate. First having Nite Owl and Rorschach keep trying to stop Ozymandias before realizing that they weren't getting anywhere. Then having the world against Dr. Manhattan works better than a fake alien invasion. The last bit makes more sense in terms of the fact that Dan sees his former partner killed and he goes off. I think here some changes were necessary to give it more of an action oriented slant. Not much more, but enough to sate an audience that was used to a bigger finale up to that point.

Well, that was because they were focusing on Harvey given his bizarre behavior. And this was still early in Bruce's career.

That was a different matter since the focus needed to be on the main plot, since this was before Hollywood started planning for trilogies with franchise films, rather than a film by film basis. The film kept the basic themes, but really changed a lot and made up other things in order to tell a complete story.

 

When I was younger, I wanted every comic book film to be a 100% faithful adaptation of the source material. I always felt the comic books could be use as cinematic story boards for films. Now that I'm older, I understand that won't happen. So, I just hope for the essence of the characters and story arcs of comic books on the source material are adapted to the films as best as possible, which I think Captain America: The Winter Solider did really well.

Here are the comic books from my pull list this week:

Action Comics #957
Harley Quinn And Her Gang Of Harleys #3
Detective Comics #934
Wonder Woman Rebirth #1

All-New X-Men #10

It's so nice to see that Action Comics and Detective Comics return to their original numbering at #957 and #934 respectively.

 

I'm just really stoked that now we'll get to see Action Comics #1000 in a couple of years.

 

I haven't had a chance to read Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1 yet. I'll probably read it tomorrow morning on my train ride to work.

I did read Superman Rebirth #1 this morning and I felt it was very meta with the Pre-N52 talking about N52 Superman with Lana Lang and the suspicions/speculations by some fans that N52 Superman would comeback. The stuff that happened in the Fortress of Solitude was very well done. I thought it was a nice transition back to Pre-N52 Superman as well as an homage to N52 Superman.

 

This week's haul:

Rebirth: Flash 1, Detective Comics 934, Aquaman 1, Action Comics 957, Wonder Woman 1. <My first Aquaman comic purchase, ever.
All new X-Men 10
Darth Vader 21. Since this is gonna end soon I may go ahead and collect all of them.
Amazing Spider-Man 1 for Civil War 2. Stand alone?
Daredevil 8
Guardians of the Galaxy 9

 

Is Xmen Forever still being published? Is Rouge still "Rouge-crawler"? Ain't got time 2 read. I just keep up like how now.

 

Detective Comics and WW Rebirth were actually pretty good.

 

I read Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1 this morning, and was somewhat disappointed as it's just another retelling of the origins of Wonder Woman. Moreover, it's retelling the her pre-Nu52 and Nu52 origins but one of them is supposedly a lie. I think that's the problem with Wonder Woman; everyone wants to retell her origins but doesn't really build on what's already been laid down previously like Superman and Batman.

I think X-Men Forever ended around 2010. Right now, the best X-Men title is the Extraordinary X-Men, followed by Uncanny X-Men which feels like the recent iterations of X-Force where there's a lot of blood shed.

 

BigAl6ft6

Watchmen is very faithful in terms of the look and design , and the casting is near perfect , but it's too condensed , several of the most character-dramatic points are just ruined by being rushed , both Laurie and Rorschach's stories just rush to their climax because the movie doesn't have the time or patience . Rorschach just immediately tells the psychiatrist his life story in the first visit , and Jon gets Laurie to her realisation by doing a mind-meld on her .

now some may say they just didn't have enough time , but I reckon they wasted a lot of time on slow-mo bone crunching fights , which aren't really in the style of the book .
ideally it would've made a great mini-series , the story does require breaks to let the viewer digest things .

 

Aquaman Rebirth was decent enough. It goes out of its way to point out that people make fun of Aquaman and snicker at his powers. It also has this awesome splash page:




Flash Rebirth was interesting in that he has a scene with batman and the Watchmen smile face is shown again and apparently the blood has some weird radiation in it.

 

Eh, they did that when the New 52 started and it was kind of a mixed bag. Could go either way.

 

But like I said, it's my first Aquaman ever.

 

I can see the appeal then in that case. Also, check out PAD's run if you ever get the chance. Once it gets over the establishing issues "We must make Aquaman cool! Have his hand get eaten! Grow out a beard! Romantic interest in jorts!" stuff it's pretty fun.

 

Randomly posted on Comic Book Resources, here's a page of Man Thing beating up a Pickle