Comics To Film - When It Works And When It Doesn't

Ignoring Two Key Factors Will Doom A Production

It’s every comics fan’s dream to see their favorite heroes and villains brought to life on the big (and little) screen. But nothing will turn that fan’s excitement into utter bile when the transition is handled in such a way that the charters are nearly unrecognizable, Let’s talk about the right way and the wrong way to transition a character from one medium to the other.

It’s Hard

Transitioning comics characters to live-action can be hard, primarily because of physics. Superman can stop trains, fly around the globe, and shoot heat vision from his eyes. To bring those powers into a live-action medium requires planning, technical trickery, and lots and lots of MONEY.

It’s an investment with enormous risk. Nobody is saying it’s easy to bring Superman to life on the screen. Therefore, when the character presented by the actors through the writing doesn’t reflect the essence of the character, the risk of not making the studio’s money back increases. So, the elements of the character as a person are just as important as the digital trickery around them.

Why Does It Matter?

This is a mistake I see with increasing frequency in Hollywood-produced comics films of late. A directing and writing team come in, and they want to put their own stamp of creativity on the character. They want to “make it their own.” More often than not, with disastrous results.

Why does it end badly? Shouldn’t creative people be allowed to use their talents?

In short, they should maximize their skills in creating the film, but not take creative license with the character (with one exception I’ll get to later.)

A studio relies on the fans of those characters for box-office or television streaming interest. If Fox opts to make a Deadpool (2016) movie (and they have with great success), it’s because there is a market of Deadpool fans that know the character and want to see him on the screen. The average person who is not into comics will have no idea who Deadpool is or what he’s about.

Of course, you don’t want to limit yourself to just comics fans, so the strategy should be to focus on the core audience (fans of Deadpool) and expand beyond that through good viewer ratings, word of mouth, and genre interest. For example, the first Deapool film is a love story. (I dare anyone to prove me wrong. @ me if you’re feeling brave @mrgabehernandez), so the fans of the romance genre have something to relate to.

Therefore, when a director and writer take significant-to-extreme creative license with characters, effectively turning them into different people, the fandom that has perpetuated interest (in some cases) for decades, rejects the work. The ancillary benefits of good user reviews and word of mouth are gone. In effect, the creative team is sacrificing the guaranteed core of viewers for their own creative vision, and that will almost entirely reduce the success of the film.

Remember, kids… Hollywood’s job is to make films that entertain and make money. Not coddle the director’s or writers’s vanity.

When It Works…

Let’s start with an easy one - Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005)

If you have even just a cursory knowledge of the Batman mythology, you know the story well enough. A young Bruce Wayne witnesses the death of his parents at the hands of a mugger in a nighttime alley. Witnessing the senseless crime drives the direction of Bruce’s life to study, train and build the tools necessary to become a dark visage of fear against the criminal elements of Gotham - The Batman.

Not enough real estate here to give the film a proper critique, but let’s cover the basic origin. Young Bruce Wayne sees his parents murdered. The horror of that event consumes him throughout his life into adulthood. Despite the marvel of tools and techniques at his disposal, his primary weapon is fear. Not killing. Not torture. Fear.

And although he will have an assortment of love interests throughout his life, the one person keeping him grounded is Alfred, the family butler. A confidante, friend and ultimately a surrogate father.

The translation from comics, above and beyond the pyrotechnics, works because the same motivations are played out and the relationships, particularly between Bruce and Alfred, are carried along. We’ll distill that down into the two keys in just a minute.

When It Doesn’t Work…

Admittedly, this one hurt to watch. Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four (2015).

This film’s failure has been reviewed into oblivion. A great example is here from Filmento on the flaws of the film, and a central flaw that has turned a bit radioactive for good reason is the casting of Michel B. Jordan and Kate Mara for the roles of Johnny Storm and Sue Storm, respectively.

Now, hold your horses. There’s more than enough nonsense thrown about because of Jordan’s casting, but it’s not what you think. This point has nothing to do specifically about the race of the character and points to a more fundamental problem.

Fantastic Four, as a property, surrounds one central theme - family. For such a simple superhero team, it’s surprisingly layered in ways that aren’t given much credit and are at the heart of why its popularity has endured since they first came on the scene in the 1960’s.

Reed Richards is the father figure of the group. Super genius and slightly bookish; he’s constantly stretching his mind and attention in solving super difficult problems. When he’s hit with cosmic rays during that fateful space mission, he’s granted stretching powers that allow him to mold and contort to address any challenge.

Ben Grimm is the surrogate older brother/uncle of the group. Acting as both pilot and bodyguard, his salt-of-the-earth personality forms the grounded, blue collar foundation of the team that occasionally makes him a little hard headed. His gift (sometimes curse) was to be transformed into a super-strong rock monster.

Are you starting to see a pattern? Their powers are reflective of their individual personalities, as well as their role in this family unit. Now, here’s where we see the conflict between the comics and the film.

Sue Storm is the matriarch of the team. Her role is crystal clear as wife, den mother and sister, but she will sometimes feel like her contributions to the group are not seen or appreciated. Her gifts are invisibility powers and force fields. See what they did there? Her frustration with not being seen is turned into an asset through invisibility, and for good measure, her nurturing protective nature as the matriarch of the group is expanded with the force field ability. In effect, her frustrations and weaknesses are literally turned into strengths.

And then we have Johnny Storm. Hot-tempered and impulsive. He’s prone to fly off the handle or off to a fun time without consideration of consequences. He’s Sue Storm’s younger brother, so her motherly tendencies are called upon often to keep Johnny in line. Of course, Johnny is granted flame powers that allow for flight and destruction. Just the opposite of Sue Storm, Johnny’s powers are an amplification of his personality that will occasionally force him to be more careful. It’s almost as if the cosmic rays were teaching this family a lesson to make them better than they already were.

So where did Josh Trank go wrong? By casting Michael B. Jordan first for the role of Johnny Storm, without considering how he would integrate into the other actors as a family unit, he was forced to retrofit the dynamic of the team once Kate Mara was cast as Sue Storm. The explanation given was that Sue was adopted from Croatia, and the roles were played as contentious siblings that were frequently vying for their father’s attention. The whole dynamic of the family is completely different from the comics and the layered depth of how and why they receive their powers comes off as random.

Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal as Johnny Storm, in isolation, is perfectly fine. It’s the disconnected relationship between Johnny and Sue that doesn’t work because Sue never assumes the motherly role within the group. Since Sue is portrayed as a super smart and valued member of the team at the onset, those feelings of protective nurturing and frustrated under-appreciation don’t reflect her personality or inform her ascension as the team’s protector. In short, the casting of Michael B. Jordan wasn’t a problem because of his skin color. The casting of both Michael B. Jordan and Kate Mara as competitive, adopted siblings hindered the story because of the botched revision to Sue and Johnny’s relationship and the subsequent revisions to how and why they acquired their unique powers. Since Johnny was cast first and had Sue been cast/written as a traditional older sister with a mothering personality, we would be telling a very different and (I believe) a much more relatable story.

Two Sides Of The Essence Coin

Let’s break this down into the two keys that you’ll find in the successful translations but are invariably missing from the failures.

The moral center/personality of the character

Every character is driven by their origin story. It defines who they are and informs the decisions they make as they evolve into the characters they become. Referring back to the Batman Begins example, had Bruce not witnessed his parents death, and if Bruce hadn’t access to his family’s wealth to execute his development, and had he not vowed to himself that not another life will be lost to senseless crime, he wouldn’t have taken the steps needed to assume the Mantle of the Bat.

You’ll see this example over and over again in comics.

Hal Jordan wouldn’t have been selected to wield the Green Lantern ring if not for his fearless personality and iron will.

The Joker wouldn’t be the villain we know and fear if he hadn’t embraced his role as an Agent of Chaos.

Captain America would not be the super soldier he is today if not for his indomitable determination to serve his country and need to set a pristine example the American spirit.

The relationships surrounding the character(s)

Characters rarely, if ever, evolve in isolation. Beyond their moral center, it’s the relationships they form with other characters that develop them into who they become. Batman is both assisted and kept in check by Alfred as the surrogate father figure. Remove Alfred without introducing a suitable replacement, and Batman becomes ungrounded to the Bruce Wayne side. Without getting into a political debate, replacing Alfred with a female morphs the dynamic into a surrogate mother relationship, which brings along a different set of views and perspectives that unavoidably changes Bruce into a wholly different character.

Numerous examples abound…

If Kal-El hadn’t been raised by the most decent parents on Earth, the Kents, he wouldn’t be Superman. Yes, Snyder and Goyer really, REALLY, got that wrong in Man Of Steel (2013). (Wanna change my mine? Give it your best shot @mrgabehernandez).

If Spider-Man hadn’t lost his Uncle Ben to a preventable crime, he wouldn’t carry that guilt and learn the lesson of “With great power comes great responsibility.” And his on-going relationship with Aunt May forces him to be more cautious with his identity than if he were completely alone.

If Dick Grayon hadn’t had a falling out of sorts with Batman, he wouldn’t have struck out on his own to eventually become Nightwing. It’s the relationship with Batman that gives birth to Nightwing. On his own after his parents death, it’s unlikely Dick would have even considered crime fighting.

Conclusion

There are examples aplenty of comic translations that go wrong and right; usually more wrong than right. There’s nothing wrong with directors and writers bringing their creative talents to the table as long as they don’t override the tow key elements that must be retained: 1) personality and 2) formative relationships.

Oh, and I did promise there was one, pesky exception. Sometimes a character occupies a space among other characters so as to gain viewership and some success by association. Captain Marvel (2019) is just such an example. On the page, the character has limited appeal. On the screen the appeal was equally mediocre, but the film benefited by being book-ended between two massive Avengers films. Without the benefit of riding the wake of two, much more superior films, it’s highly unlikely Captain Marvel would have nearly the success it did. In that specific type of circumstances, the dogmatic adherence to personality and relationships matters very little. Sometimes it pays to get the leftovers.

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