Superman Through the Ages! Forum

What would the lot of you consider to be the best Superhero movies ever made?

I know for one that if I had to make a top ten list, the following eight films would be on it:

8. Batman: the Movie (Adam West)

An over the top sense of humor, a fantastic story with fantastic villains...Batman getting rid of a bomb, and Batfanboys hate it. What could be better?

7. Superman

I don't think anyone doubts this movie's right to be on this list, so it as a choice speaks for itself.

6. Batman Begins

God, were the nineties movies ever terrible. Sure, Joel Schumacher gets a lot of crap because he totally deserves it, but really, the notion that the Batman movies were great films ruined by bat-nipples is rewriting history. Finally,  we get a tight story and characterization of Batman not a grunting, sullen jerk insensitive to those around him (yes, I *AM* looking at you, Chuck Dixon and Frank Miller) but as a heroic figure motivated by more than just revenge. In other words, we see a lot of Steve Englehart's definitive characterization shining through.

And Christian Bale is a great, understated actor. Remember that scene where Batman pretended to be drunk to get people out of his house? You get the feeling he wasn't entirely just pretending...

5. The Shadow

Superheroes ought to be played by unknowns, but I'd make an exception for Alec Baldwin. This one had it all: Tibetan temples, mind hypnosis powers, a fight in a hall of mirrors, mongols attacking mad scientists, giant invisible buildings...

4. Superman II

With all the origin stuff out of the way they could concentrate on telling a decent story, and the most astonishing 15 minute fight in the history of superhero film.

3. The Rocketeer

May not technically be a superhero movie, but it's so good that recognition of it trumps classification.

2. The Phantom
It also could have been titled "Ghost Dad," but I think that was already taken.

I don't want to say anything that we don't already know, but God, was Billy Zane BORN to be a superhero! I absolutely hated the Batman movies of the 1990s because the actors overacted; they growled and grunted and posed for the camera like supermodels. Billy Zane and Christopher Reeve were great because they were the opposite: they understated. Combine this with Treat Williams' warm and humorous performance of a villain with extraordinary personality, and for the love of Mike, a stunt where someone jumps off a plane to a horse...easily you have one of the greatest superhero movies ever. It had a fascinating sense of humor, a tight story, excellent use of the Phantom story elements without the movie feeling crowded (Bengalla, the Jungle Patrol, the Skull Cave, the Phantom's Ghost Dad).

1. The Incredibles

Great superhero film with great drama.

Two Movies I will confess to being guilty pleasures, but I would never in my right mind put on a list of great superhero movies:

Supergirl

Masters of the Universe

I thought about this lately, after sitting through the glut of summer films.

Artistic Choice: Fantomas (1920s silent films series)

Nostalgic Choice: Superman

Modern Choice:  Spiderman 2 (my wife, not a superhero fan, enjoyed it immensely as well) or the Incredibles

Nerd Choice: Ultraman!

I watched the first Transporter movie right after Batman Begins and enjoyed it more.

If we're allowed to have heroes from comic books apart from just superheroes, my list would have TANK GIRL on it too. Yeah, I know this is "Superman Through the Ages" and we're supposed to get all pissy if a hero in a movie even smokes a cigarette,  but there was something transcendentally awesome about that scene where Tank Girl, surrounded by mutant kangaroos, gives a guy the finger before hurling cans of beer at him from her giant tank gun. Lori Petti ought to give up the art and stick to character acting. It's as wasteful as seeing Michael Jordan play golf.



I liked Spider-Man 2 as well, but I wouldn't put it amongst the best superhero movies ever. For two reasons:

1) CGI Spidey. What a disappointment. There is something inherently fake about CGI technology. Claymation, though less sophisticated, at least gives you a sense of a physical object. And it's significant to note that the best movies utilizing CGI have been LORD OF THE RINGS and JURASSIC PARK (which was made in 1993). LORD OF THE RINGS's CGI worked because it was all long shots so as not to see details, and because it was used to touch up and expand on an already extraordinary physical performance. JURASSIC PARK's CGI worked because it was the special effect director's last choice instead of their first, not supplanting more impressive advanced puppetry and anamatronics.

2) Bad editing. Good Lord, was this movie ever longer than it ought to have been. You can picture poor Sam Raimi in the editing suite bawling and crying his eyes out. "NO! NO! We CAN'T cut that scene of Spider-Man buying an ice-cream cone and looking up at the sky!" Aunt May's narration was excruciating instead of inspiring because it was allowed to go on FOREVER. That scene with Hal Sparks in the elevator was a cute cameo, but it belongs to the DVD release as a cute DVD extra instead of padding out the finished film. About the only scene that was cut and edited properly was the one where Doctor Octopus's arms go haywire in the hospital. It was cut quickly like a horror movie and not surprisingly, was the best scene in the film.

Good choice for a thread.

10: X-Men - Not as good as the sequel, but it's still one of the best comic book films ever made.

9: Sin City - Easily the most accurate comic book adaptation ever. This one has excellent film noir and an equally excellent cast.

8: Superman 2 - The last good Superman movie. Even without Donner this film was very enjoyable for me--hopefully WB releases a "special addition" version with the cut scenes put back in. It'd be a great way to promote Superman Returns (since it is a semi-sequel to this film).

7: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm - The best Batman film ever before Batman Begins came out.

6: X-2: X-Men United - A truly great comic book film. The cast was used very well in this superior sequel.

5: Spider-Man - THE movie that re-energized the comic-film franchise. It connected with the public and did huge business at the box office.

4: The Incredibles - This movie portrays super-heroes as many of us miss them being portrayed: noble, unselfish, caring, and majestic. A film that anyone--of any age--can watch and enjoy.

3: Spider-Man 2 - Another Marvel movie sequel that was better than the original. This film proved that the original Spider-Man movie wasn't just a fluke. Raimi really showed what makes Spider-Man such a compelling character.

2: Superman - Hopefully I don't get lynched for listing this film as the runner-up. This Donner masterpiece was the very first GREAT super-hero movie. It's still timeless after all these years.

1: Batman Begins - Even though Superman is my favorite comic book character ever, I'd have to say that the newest Batman movie narrowly nudges it out. Superman would've EASILY got this position if not for the Deus ex Machina ending and the somewhat campy (though still quite evil) Lex Luthor.

As for this film, it was perfect. The Batman portrayed here was a nice mix of the different interpretations of the character--from O'Neil, to Miller, to Loeb. It makes the other live-action Batman films pale in comparison. It literally dwarfs the other live-action films with its greatness. Christian Bale was the perfect Batman (just like Chris Reeve was the perfect Superman).

I feel fairly thoughtless for leaving out MASK OF THE PHANTASM, which was neat. Ditto for X-2, which was likewise astonishing. While it had the most innovative uses of superpowers since the giant fight in SUPERMAN II, it had one flaw that I think keeps it from astonishing greatness:

Namely, here were all this colorful, personality-rich bad guys that inhabit the X-movies, to say nothing of the comic source material and they pick as the Lord of All Evil and central bad guy, an evil accountant? Good Lord, with the goatee Brian Cox looks like a grinning, evil literature professor.

I can't believe they went from fighting the god Kukulkan and Krakatoa the Living Island to THIS guy. Blech.



What, no love for my boy Steve Englehart, who wrote the definitive Batman?  :wink:

My bad.  :)

You have my permission. :D



I'm with Sam on this one, despite the CGI!  Superhero movies need to be shorter on the tough-guy ass-kicking and SUV-driving-while-lying-on-your-belly-for-no-apparent-reason, and longer on the blubbering!

More date, less hate!

There are some honorable mentions that I'd like to include: Hellboy and Ghost World.

Hellboy surprisingly followed the source material quite faithfully, and it had a steller cast.

Ghost World is one of my favorite movies ever, and the only reason it didn't make the list was because it wasn't a traditional comic book film.

See I knew making this list I'd kick myself at least twice. The first time was for not listing X-2 and MASK OF THE PHANTASM, and now for HELLBOY, which was so cute and great and had such heart. Hellboy fighting a giant devil dog while saving a box of kittens - didn't that just make you go, BINGO! They get Hellboy?

I also would add to the list FLASH GORDON, the 1980s version, if for no other reason than extreme quotability. "Prime numbers of the Zenith system" and "No! Not ze bore vorms!" To say nothing of any phrase that starts with "Pathetic Earthlings..." Not to mention possibly the greatest casting choices ever made. Brian Blessed deserved every penny of however much he made for his role as the impossible to dislike Vultan, King of the Hawkmen. Max Von Sydow probably suckerpunched his agent next time he saw him, but he was GREAT and cold and underplayed, the exact opposite of Frank Langella in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. I had to hose my TV down after the love scenes with the mindblowing Ornella Muti. And don't forget Topol and Timothy Dalton...it's like everybody making this movie understood how goofy it was, so none of them took it seriously. And don't forget the extravagant costumes with fins on them and the over the top soundtrack by Queen, possibly the greatest band of the 1980s? "No one but the pure in heart will find the golden grail." Whoa, man, you're messing with my head here, Freddy Mercury.

This opens up a dangerous precedent, though, because comic-book style movies are introduced into the mix, mention must be made of the following films:

Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension

They created an entire world in one movie without it feeling crowded. The paperback novelization is required, so you can figure out where Pecos went (she's a woman, by the way) and who the Kolodny Brothers and Hanoi Xan are.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

If this was a flat out superhero list, it would be number one, at least on my list. SKY CAPTAIN is a movie that in humor and characters and visual splendour is only equalled by the original STAR WARS.

Well, I'm a batfanboy and I love it.  But that might be because my "fanboy" status is directly attributable to this film.  Fans today are spoiled with all the big-budget superhero films around, but back in the day, this film was astonishing: the costumes, the gadgets, the vehicles, the giant Bat-Cave set.  It was a comic book come to life (as opposed to the Superman TV show...which I love, don't get me wrong...that featured a guy in a suit and two or three pieces of stock "flying" footage).

Adam West is STILL Batman.



Yes, but it's a bit surprsing to see it so low down when conventional wisdom says it's the best or nearly so.  How about a couple of sentences on why it's just #7?



To my chagrin, and frustration, I still haven't seen this and at this point might not until DVD (life is a lot more complicated with two kids in diapers!).  But I'm looking forward to it.



Funny, when they first announced Michael Keaton as Batman, I naturally assumed they'd got it all wrong and meant to say it was that other guy from Beetlejuice, Alec Baldwin.  I still say he'd have made a great Batman, even if by now I'm pretty tired of Baldwin as a "personality."  The Shadow certainly had its good points, but in the end I think it was an awkward mix of the pulps (blazing .45s, Moe Shrevnitz and his cab, the rescue on the bridge -- although in the books it was Harry Vincent saved and not Roy Tam) and the radio show (invisibility, "The Shadow Knows..." etc).  I wish they'd stuck to the pulps.

Die-hard fans might not have liked it (I don't know), but I thought it was pretty creative to have that famous Shadow "hawk nose" be a manifestation of Cranston's illusion powers.  In the end, though, this film was sunk for me by the incongruous -- and unwelcome -- attempts at camp humor ("hey, buddy, that's the good old US of A you're talking about!")  

But I still like it better than the 90s Batman films.



I thought this was the greatest film ever when it came out, but I have to say it does not hold up for me.  That "astonishing" fight often looks cheap and goofy (and breaks its own, already nutty, laws of physics), the "I love Lois enough to give it all up" plotline was unconvincing and -- from my point of view -- nauseating, and the ending is the biggest cheat of all time ("There will be no way to get back your powers...no, wait, there is a way...but we'll never tell the audience what it was!").

Put me in the camp that will forever pine for a Donner-helmed Superman II.  Who knows how great it might have been?



A fantastic film which has been undervalued and ignored since the day it came out.  I love it!



I liked a lot about this film, though the super-powered rings were a bit much.  Your "Ghost Dad" remark brings up one thing that never worked for me, and that's Patrick McGoohan as Phantom #20.  I love Pat, but honestly can anyone imagine him in the skin-tight outfit Billy Zane wears?  And yet that's what he's supposed to have been wearing when that bad guy killed him.  How drunk, blind or insane must that guy have been that he couldn't tell McGoohan's 70-something physique from that of Zane?!  

I really wish this movie had done better, if for no other reason than I want Zane to be recognized for it and not that incredible waste of celluloid known as "Titanic."



Agreed.  Best superhero film, ever.  And for that matter, the best James Bond movie in at least 20 years.

I'm not a fan of movies based on comics.
By the way, my favorit is, and always will be, Superman II. It's like to see a comic on the silver screen. I love it.

I haven't seen Hellboy but I'm sure it will join my list of Modern Faves.

Ghost World, one of favorite films (and comics) of the last 10 years -and of all time, didn't make my list because this thread is titled "Greatest Superhero Movies Ever".  Although I am willing to grant that both Steve Buscemi's skinny, record-collecting loser character and the confused young punk girl character of Enid qualify as superheroes in my universe.

The screenwriter and cartoonist behind Ghost World, Dan Clowes, published his latest opus this year and it's a comic book about a superhero, called "The Death Ray".  Very Highly recommended.  For fans of superhero comics and for fans of great art.  Maybe some day it will be a movie...

Interesting point about a Donner-helmed SUPERMAN II. I recall one extra scene on the DVD that shows Lois using her intelligence to discover who Superman is, by shooting at Clark Kent with a gun. Watching him stumble and fall down, Superman rises, and says, "You know, if you'd been wrong, Clark Kent would have been killed." Lois taps the gun lightly and grins wide. "With blanks?"

How absolutely genius this Donner idea was, and so true to Lois's cleverness and intelligence, compared to the bumbling way that was used in the finished SUPERMAN II, which was achieved despite Lois instead of because of her.

I'm with you that the movie could have been better. (Yeah, a minute ago I put it at #3 at superhero movies of all time. So freakin' what? Consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind.)

Though I stand by my comment about the gigantic fight scene. Wherever else this movie may have done, at least that was impressive, if not necessarily in execution, than in sheer scope.

We superhero fans take it for granted that superhero fight scenes are going to be big. Whether it's the Thing vs. Dragon Man destroying an entire warehouse district, or the JLA vs. a 50 foot Despero rising from the water, these fights involve lots of good natured mayhem and lots of collateral damage. Who wins? Everybody, especially when you've got an artist like Kirby. Who loses? The city the fight is held in, for sure.

But compared to the fight scenes in the comics, those in movies are downright muted. The only one that even comes close to the destruction, energy, power, and mayhem is the fight in SUPERMAN II, at least in concept; in that scene, cars were flipped over by superbreath, manhole covers are used like frisbees and entire billboards are vaporized by heat vision. Maybe by today's standards it isn't as mindblowing, but they had the right idea.

Here's a question for the forum: what are the greatest superhero fight scenes? In comics or otherwise.

For me, at least, the three greatest fight scenes in comics are as follows:

3. IRON FIST (Chris Claremont, Iron Fist).

I've said for many years that comics about Martial Arts are fairly pointless. For one thing, Kung Fu movies are all about motion and acrobatics, whereas on a comics page, they just lie there and there is no motion. Martial Arts fight scenes, I said, were a waste of time, just like a car chase in comics form is a waste of time: not thrlling in a medium without movement. That was, until a friend sat me down with dogeared 70s issues of the Byrne/Claremont run on IRON FIST, and said, "Look, just read these and shut up."

Am I glad he said that. There's a law somewhere that states that Byrne's art gets worse the more popular he became, and this is certainly true; here on IRON FIST, when he was a newcomer and a nobody, it was never better. The multiple image fight sequence was a pioneered invention by Byrne and  never better than where used here. Bodies clashed and unusual positions were entered. Nunchaku were twirled. The only thing I regret about IRON FIST's fight scenes is that I did not read them when they first came out. So much of what was done there has entered into comics' lexicon now that while it is great, it doesn't feel as pioneering as it must have back in the Silver Age.

Reading Byrne do great work here is sort of like seeing a cute, potential-filled young Anakin Skywalker in Episode I, aware of the evil that he eventually would become.


2. DESTROY! (Scott McCloud).

Yeah, it was meant as a joke, a semi-parody of Kirby's style. But what resulted were the most muscular, crane-chucking battle scenes yet seen. How I wish Scott McCloud would quit dicking around with his pretentious independent comics read by like, 2,000 people and do a decent superhero science fiction comic.

Only, y'know, as long as the fights are held away from MY city.  :D


1. THING VS. SILVER SURFER (Stan Lee, Jack Kirby). FF #51 (or thereabouts, my memory is bad).

Long live the King!

Of course it would be a Kirby battle at number one. Feet were never more than five feet apart with a single punch. People turn entire skyscrapers on one another like clubs. His Thing vs. Hulk fight in that same comic may be more famous, but between FF #40 and FF #70, Kirby was at the peak at his game in a career that is already a mountain range. This one, and a close second in that very FF run, the battle of the Fantastic Four against the ground-quaking Gorgon, showed Kirby at his best: the monstrous Thing bending and attacking the Silver Surfer; they wrestle with arms that can move mountains; the Silver Surfer morphs into a comet of pure energy to beam right on the Thing. and Benjy hurls our glaze coated spaceman out a mile with one titanic love tap.

Don't take my word for it, read it for yourself![/b]

Yeah, Kirby is just about the final word on fight scenes and even McCloud's DESTROY! was little more than a comic homage to the King.

Pick anything from those late-60s runs on Capt America, FF, or Thor.  Although recently I've rediscovered some of the 4th World stuff, including Guardian appearances in Jimmy Olsen --classic fights.  And his 70s Cap and Black Panther have a special place in my heart as well.  Most of these still hold up for me.

Off the top of my head, fight scenes I liked as a kid but may be a little cool on now include Superman vs Muhammed Ali (several good scenes), and George Perez on FF/Avengers/early Teen Titans (vs Terminator & vs Brotherhood of Evil).  Lots of rubble.  A Black-and-White Gil Kane issue of Conan really affected me once --Conan and some viking team-up to conquer a disappearing castle --lots of swordplay and dynamic fighting.  Joe Kubert's Hawkman vs Superman/superman robots in JLA 200 was an eye-opener for me.

Nowadays I would have to pick Popeye fight scenes from Segar's Thimble Theatre.  The tension and pacing in these old strips are simply marvelous and Popeye is really one of the great American characters --indeed, one of the aspects of U.S. culture I admire the most.  Long, multi-week battles, full of humour and pathos/bathos, demonstrating the uncrushable will of Popeye and the power of love, friendship, and fatherhood. (A close second would be Roy Crane's Buz Sawyer and Capt Easy strips for great pugilistics)

Interesting that I can't think of any real Superman scenes, especially Silver Age/Curt Swan.  A lot less in the way of fisticuffs --more inventive solutions to conflict.  The same thing of other (40s-50s) classic strips like Jack Cole's Plastic Man, Wonder Woman, and later Capt Marvel.

Do the best superhero fight scenes necessarily involve the destruction of buildings?  I would say yes.

Interesting you should point that out. One thing I've noticed as being unfortunate, is that the artists that are most likely to be overlooked by fans are the ones who don't draw and do layouts the way Kirby did. I mean Curt Swan, Don Heck, and to a lesser extent, Jim Aparo and Gil Kane. Don Heck could draw good looking women and he made superhero costumes look like real clothes. Gil Kane always was at his best with Westerns and historical works. Perhaps it is that when comics became more and more about superhero adventure (and consequently superhero fights) that Kirby's excellent visual style became the benchmark, and so artists who used a different visual language are (unjustly) interpreted as being "boring."

Interestingly enough, Frank Frazetta bucks the pattern; he draws differently than Kirby and primarily worked with other genres apart from superheroic adventure, but he is hardly overlooked.

Incidentally, I love seeing "Man Who Stole the Sun" on this very website in B&W. It isn't a disadvatage, because you see Curt's clean, correct inks. Some artists, like John Totleben and Swan, are seen better in black and white.

Fights?

Well, as a little kid I notice that for fights there was Marvel and for plots there was DC.

Of course, this is mostly the case post-Golden Age.  Those early National comics were full of brawlers.  Even Superman got his hands dirty back then, before he could do everything at the speed of light or from a distance.

Oh, I don't know.  Neal Adams was hot stuff when I was a kid, and he was the anti-Kirby as far as I was concerned.

As far as memorable fight scenes, I always thought "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" was one of the greatest of all time.

http://superman.nu/tales3/showdown/

But this is just a bare-knuckled brawl between two non-powered combatants, isn't it?  And it's drawn in a pretty sedate manner, looking kind of like a photographic record of an ordinary, garden variety boxing match.  But that's the whole point of my love of Superman, really.  Stunning visuals are all well and fine, but without an involving story featuring people I care about, what's the point?  SA Superman was hugely engrossing on an emotional level, to the point where a fight like this one made a bigger impression on me than any city-wrecking free-for-all in the pages of The Avengers.

Modern comics are like Michael Bay movies; they've upped the ante on visuals but forgotten how to tell a story.  You might go "wow" a few times at the special effects, but there's no chance you'll care a whit about the characters.

(sigh)

A few points of comparison:


Modern Age Superman Fans...

...When slamming previous Superman ages, don’t actually talk about any actual stories, but reference vague, unclear hearsay about planet-pushing and Super-Pets.

...Underplay the influence and imaginative power that the Superman of previous generations possessed.

...Are embarrassed instead of proud of the legacy of brilliant writers like Jerry Siegel, Edmund Hamilton, Elliot S! Maggin, and Cary Bates (assuming they’ve heard of them at all).

...Are contemptuous of previous eras of Superman mostly because they haven’t even read the comics.

...Believe they have nothing in common with Kneejerk Marvel Detractors.
 

Kneejerk Marvel Detractors...

...When slamming Marvel stories, don’t actually talk about any actual stories, but reference vague, unclear hearsay about superhero fights and Spider-Man complaining.

...Underplay the influence and imaginative power that Stan Lee and his artist collaborators possessed.

...Are embarrassed instead of proud of the legacy of brilliant writers like Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas, Don MacGregor, and Steve Gerber (assuming they’ve heard of them at all).

...Are contemptuous of Marvel books mostly because they haven’t even read them.

...Believe they have nothing in common with Modern Age Superman fans.

I'll be the first to admit that I didn't buy a lot of Marvel comics, a few Iron Man, a couple of Fantastic Four, one where they face the Black Panther...but we are not all going to arrive at a consensus here, and this is a Superman site, so, yeah, there might be some Marvel bias...

Doesn't mean I don't like reading other opinions... 8)

I don’t see why there has to be a conflict or a sense of mutual distaste – Superman is the original (and possibly best) superhero. Marvel makes superhero comics. Superman inspired Marvel at the beginning, and Marvel’s model and approach came right back and influenced Superman in return come the seventies.

And when I say “Kneejerk Marvel Detractors,” I don’t mean those that have read comics from both companies and have an honest preference for DC. I mean those that have not read Lee or Englehart or Thomas and feel they’re entitled to an opinion based on (mostly false) perceptions.  

...as for me, at least these days, I think America’s Best Comics (no idle boast at all) is doing more interesting things than either company.  :D

I'm actually a fan of some vintage Marvel stuff.  For instance, I think Lee and Kirby's run on the FF from about issue 50 to issue 80 rank as some of the best comics ever done by anyone for any company.  And I absolutely adore Ditko-era Dr. Strange: possibly the only time the "flawed hero" concept worked 100 percent for me, because it's about a man who, from the ruins of his previously self-centered life, finds meaning and purpose in working for the good of others (as opposed to all the Marvel characters who seem bummed out that they're stuck with the hero gig).

My big problem with Marvel is that it ushered in the era of soap-opera subplots and the beginnings of "relevance" and "reality" in comics.  When Stan did it, it was fresh and -- this is important -- funny.  Spider-Man was a gag strip, you know.  The idea of a hero who had to do homework, sew his own costume, run a prescription home to his aunt on the way back from fighting villains...that was funny stuff and it was played for laughs.  But all the lieutenant Stans who followed took it deadly serious and sucked the fun right out of the book, and by extension a lot of others as well.  And once the whole thing had been run into the ground and done to death, DC -- as ever three steps behind -- jumped on the bandwagon and started doing it, too.

That said, some of my favorite runs ever are from Marvel books.  Besides the above, there's Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, Claremont and Byrne's X-Men and...so sue me...Bill Mantlo and Mike Golden's Micronauts.

Veering closer to "back on topic," favorite fights include Dr Strange vs Dormammu (Ditko days), the Hulk vs the FF and Avengers (FF #25-26), the FF versus a Silver Surfer-powered Dr Doom(FF #60), Captain America versus Baron Blood (Cap #254) and various episodes in the Kree-Skrull War.

So let me add Micronauts vs. Man-thing --Micronauts #7 (I think ?)  A holy relic.

I agree with you on the Marvel and DC evolution, Nightwing.  Because of the general trends both companies followed, it became hard for me to completely enjoy soomething like Miller's Daredevil (although the art by Mazzuchelli helps) or Simonson's Thor (sloppy art --or maybe just too idiosyncratic for me to maintain the illusion that he is paying homage to classic comics by the like sof Kirby/Buscema, et al).

Bravo, Nightwing - I've never heard what works about Spider-Man put better.

Although humor has a funny way of leading into something sad and poignant, especially if you've got somebody as skilled at characterization as Stan was. This point was really brought home by one particular sequence in Molly Shannon's SUPERSTAR, which was not a great film, but it does have a textbook illustration of this phenomenon:

For the first 70 minutes of the movie, we have Molly Shannon as Mary Katherine Gallagher clowning around, falling down and breaking things, and being placed in Special Ed. Then, finally, she takes her glasses off. Her eyes are wet. She whimpers and confesses "Sometimes...sometimes I'm so ashamed that I am the way that I am..."

Your mind doesn't even switch gears here. The qualities one found humorous in this ridiculous schoolgirl suddenly became tragic.

Alan Moore understands this phenomenon better than anyone. Many people point to MIRACLEMAN as being the first true Modern Age (or Iron Age, whatever term you prefer) comic, an assessment that I don't agree with, for one reason: the Modern Age is predicated on 1) outright embarassment at comics' past, or 2) laughing at comics' great legacy, and MIRACLEMAN did neither. MIRACLEMAN used the past not to evoke a laugh, but the opposite: to trigger poignancy. The vistas of the carefree 1950s were juxtaposed with the far different 1980s. Nostalgia is inherently very melancholic, because the thing about the past is, it's gone, never to return; when Alan Moore envokes Miracleman's past, it is to create a sense of tragedy, a sense of loss. The very things that the Modern Age got you to laugh at, in MIRACLEMAN, were things that made you cry.

"Realism" isn't necessarily bad in and of itself - Fabian Nicieza's PSI FORCE and Jim Shooter's STAR BRAND were science fiction with an emphasis on plausibility, for instance, and were very successfully done. But "realism" means something different in a superhero comics world where civic-minded people punch out giant robots instead of doing what they'd do in our world, which is rivet girders in Ghana for the Peace Corps. The trick to crafting a superhero world is to be consistent with those rules that you've established. In this sense, the Iron Age emphasis on dark grittiness ironically is MORE "unrealistic" in this context: it violates the rules we've seen so far about how superheroes work, namely, they wear costumes, don't kill, and shave more than once a month.

"Soap Opera", or character-centered stories, aren't necessarily bad either if you have characters people care about (and I don't know about you, but I read comics to see interesting people), but the trick is to have a resolution to the stories and not to use them as page-killers. Every good writer introduces a story, lets them work like steps, and finally, lets them be resolved and come to an end. This happened with the Wonder Man/Vision/Scarlet Witch triangle in Busiek's Avengers; eventually, it got resolved and ENDED, finally restoring Simon's self-confidence, restoring the Vision's soul, human emotions, and basic humanity, and restoring Wanda's strength. This happened with Stan Lee's rivalry between Hawkeye and Captain America; eventually, both save the life of each other, and where he once swore Cap off as an "overaged square," Hawkeye is filled with trust and respect. The point here, though, is these stories have beginnings, middles, and most importantly, endings.



I'll agree with you for no other reason than to give props to Mantlo. Part of the reason he doesn't get the attention he deserves is because he was writing SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP and CHAMPIONS at the same time Englehart was writing AVENGERS and DOCTOR STRANGE and Gerber was writing DEFENDERS, MAN-THING and HOWARD THE DUCK and Roy Thomas was writing CONAN...

This reminds me of my college course on Renaissance Art, where there were discussions of all sorts of obscure artists I had never heard of but were brilliant nonetheless. It's easy to lose a genius here or there if you're painting in the Renaissance, after all.



Speaking of Mantlo (and also getting us back to topic) don't forget the Red Skull/Doctor Doom fight on the Moon in SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM UP #11 (1974 or thereabouts).

Not to get too off topic, but here is one of the very few new comic books that I am looking forward to:

Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big In Japan

Quotes:

“Mostly what I want to do is broaden the fictionality of my characters. You know, like make the characters less believable rather than more. So they really start to spark your imagination."

Read about it here: http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=3c3f97b37572267ae2ab5d15ab5ca61d&threadid=40484

Huh! Interesting thing to point out, Super Monkey.

Although I don't recall any of the Marvel Monsters ever attacking Japan. Fing Fang Foom was from China, and there was another one that lived in radioactive caves in Russia, but not Japan.

Quote:

“My little brother was always into Fantastic Four, but you have to realize I grew up reading comics in the late eighties/early nineties. The book was anything but "Fantastic" back then.”[/list]

Nice of you to kick a man when he's down, Seth. Steve Englehart's characterization-rich FF is better than we deserved. But, hey, he's really a marginalized figure in the industry these days, isn't he? Powerless to defend himself.

Englehart took the straw and detritus of Byrne's run (having blind Alicia leave her tormented, poetic, beautiful love of the Thing to romp around with hunky Johnny, who becomes inexplicably teenage again, as well as the removal of the Thing - the heart of the team - to be replaced by walking Marketing Gimmick She-Hulk) and he weaved it into gold: characterizing Johnny as a mature adult facing adult responsibilities he once ignored as a youth, and the Thing as a wise, experienced, heroic leader.

And it seems the artist is using Byrne's white collared FF costumes, too.  (*groan*)

Oh, and it also cashes in on the current youth trend for all things Japanese. You know one culture the kids these days ought to catch on to? All things Finno-Ugaric!

We can have kids reading the Kalevala and Kalevipoeig, all the while planning their trips to Helsinki and Talinn, and debating if the Russians should cede the lands of Karelian speaking peoples back to Finland.

I grew up watching Godzilla, Gamera and Ultraman. Funny, I don't like Anime all that much. Also that artist doesn't draw in an Manga style which I also do not care for at all, his style is more French than Japanese.

Nightwing, I understand why you call Amazing a gag strip (somewhat facetiously I think), but it sounds dismissive of a lot of what made the first 30-odd issues great. The situations in Parker's life you describe were not played only for laughs. I really take issue with that. Lee and Ditko struck a balance, and a very good one, between the absurdly funny and the distinctly unfunny. Like so many of the best dramas, "Spider-Man" had us chuckling one minute and almost crying the next. There is a lot of well-played angst and tragedy in the comics, some of it genuinely poignant. This is a comic book, sure, but it's also good writing -- or, put a better way, good storytelling. I don't know about you, but I don't feel for a character in a "gag strip", whereas in Amazing Spider-Man I care about what is happening to him. (I have to add, it's not just the Lee-Ditko issues that have this quality, but something about the Lee-Ditko collaboration produced the blackest clouds over Parker's head; often he is truly in despair and we all know the pain of being young and never having things turn out right, particularly in relationships.) In a gag strip (yes, I know it was a throwaway term of yours, but I am going to punish you mercilessly for it) it is the gag that's the thing, whereas in "Spider-Man" it was Peter Parker who was the focus. Or, put slightly differently, often the absurd situations appeared to arise because of Parker's character, and not because they were imposed by the writer, if that makes sense. That makes for good drama. I agree with you as you go on to say later writers didn't get it and sucked the life right out of it. Maybe what they lost was the absurdity of Parker and his ridiculous life. You are right: played straight and serious, it doesn't work. That doesn't mean, however, that "Spider-Man" didn't have its effective "serious" moments...

As you talk about "reality", I can tell you of something about "reality" that bothers me. I don't buy all this garbage about "reality" in comics, with classic DC being seen as fantasy or kiddie stuff, and Marvel being seen as "realistic". (I love a lot of old Marvel as you know.) It bothers me because a dysfunctional, neurotic man is seen as "real" whereas a clean-cut strong man of solid morals (eg. Hal Jordan*) is seen as pure fantasy and "unrealistic". I think you will see where I'm going with this. I'm not saying someone I admired and loved from the comics of my childhood like Hal Jordan didn't have doubts or personal struggles -- but the point is he wasn't neurotic and didn't have to wear his heart on his sleeve, telling his sob-stories to every passerby. What happened to the great American tradition of a strong individual, setting his jaw at times of adversity, and getting on with what needs to be done? Because Hal Jordan didn't deliver a depressing soliloquy every time he hit a personal setback, does that make him "unrealistic"? Since when did "realistic" mean a man has to whinge and moan about his problems? I'm not saying this sort of man isn't "realistic" -- but it doesn't mean every other type of man is "unrealistic". You know some people like to make a case that traditionally DC characters are goody-two-shoes and far-fetched whereas Marvel characters are grounded in reality and could be living in your street! But let's face it, if there are differences, real or imagined, it's nothing to do with their long-underwear careers. A guy sticking to a wall like a spider is hardly more realistic than a guy dressing as a bat to scare gangsters. The "realistic" angle comes in (so they tell me) when Parker moans and cries, or when Ben and Johnny try to kill each other in anger... Supposedly the "unrealistic" angle arrives when we see a clean-cut and physically-fit test pilot who grits his teeth and happily (yes, happily) accepts the responsibilty that has been thrust upon him. It was no accident -- like with Spidey and the FF, my friends -- that Hal Jordan became Green Lantern. Hal Jordan was chosen from out of us all because he was the best man for the job, the cream of the crop.

It is not unrealistic to suppose that some men are "the cream of the crop".

(*I'm talking here about the real Hal Jordan: the honest, two-fisted tough-guy as he was originally conceived.)

THANKS FOR THE HEADs UP, BEPPO, old chum! Sump'n new to read while waiting for DC to reprint New Frontier TPB 2 (SPEAKING OF THE REAL HAL) and the latest Kyle Baker Plas!

FF tai San dai kaiju!!!

Okay, so Spider-Man wasn't *only* a gag strip.  I agree there was some real pathos in there, and arguably the most iron-clad, believable reason a Marvel hero ever had for being a hero even when he felt like quitting(namely, crushing guilt over what happened when he *failed* to do the right thing).  But there certainly was humor in the book and when it left, I followed (well, figuratively speaking...I was a tot when Ditko quit).  I regret that comics writers and fans have, by and large, lost the ability to laugh at themselves and the medium.

Growing up, it always irked me that Marvel zombies would share a hearty laugh over goofy old "Whizzer," that GA character who had not only the most unfortunate superhero name ever but also, supposedly, the dumbest origin.  Briefly, he got his super-speed after he was bit by a mongoose.  Ha-ha, so silly, so juvenile, so very Golden Age in its childishness.  But meanwhile, what's the most popular, iconic, beloved character for these Marvelites?  Spider-Man, a guy who was empowered by a spider bite.

Hello?

I think there's two reasons humor and fun have gone out of comics.  One is that humor is a lot harder to write than tragedy, and most writers then and now aren't up to it.  Two, fanboys take themselves and their hobby too seriously, which is why the rest of the world never will.  Fanboys can carp all they want on the "damage" done by the Adam West Batman show, or the Schumacher films, but in the end the worst enemy of comics is the rabid, self-absorbed, insular fan community.  Socially, they are almost but not quite as appealing as Scientologists and Amway salesmen.

Yeah Nightwing, they're like the insular horror fans who populate B-movie boards and fight over gore flicks.

Wait - whare are WE doing? :shock:

Well, if anything here if we disagree b aout anything, we agree to disagree and it's not such a big deal.

And for those civilians out there in the real world, what is the most inofrmation any of em have re Superman or say Spider Man?
What they saw/see on movies & TV.

And for them, that's all they/we need to know - Superman is from krypton,. he's really CK, his GF is LL, CK works at the Planet, his enemy is Luthor... etc etc

On fan boards the minuate gets out of whack and if some body dare tells me the Flash is anyone but Barry Allen theyre gonna get a scarlet mouthful! :wink:

LOL! :D

Not only do I more or less agree with the post, but it got me to look up the Whizzer, who it seems was a fine enough character in that he got a transfusion from a mongoose and was a functional GA character...

Taking it all too seriously is a big deal, why I get riled about "continuity" so much...how many times has Superman been stopped because someone was in danger from a criminal and how many OTHER times has he used his super speed to intervene before any criminal could even notice...you just can't really demand this kind of consistency or continuity, its tough enough to come up with an interesting and challenging storyline as it is...so I like to lean on character and good storytelling as my baramoter...

2 new thoughts on this topic:

1. I just saw Kung Fu Hustle on dvd and it blew me away, going to the top of my 10 best Superhero Movies immediately.  I'd urge everyone to see it.  Don't be dissuaded by the Kung Fu trappings: it is a really original and thrilling epic, hilarious and beautiful.  It makes you feel good about the potential of film.  Really.  And it is a real superhero movie. Really.

2. Picked up some Alan Moore comics at a yard sale this weekend (Promethea, Tom Strong, Top 10).  Thought, for 50 cents each, it's about time I read more of these (I read some of them on the rack when there was a buzz about them 10 years ago).  Anyway, the big joke in Top Ten, Moore's version of Hill Street Blues starring superheroes, is that one of the illegal rave drugs used by superhero teens is Mongoose Blood, used to dance at super-speed, invisible to the naked eye (luckily I read the Invaders/X-Men/Avengers as a kid, learning my Whizzer lore).  Lots of great, cute, comics in-jokes.  Top 10 was probably the best of the bunch, although I like some of the idea of Promethea and the idea of Alan Moore as a Shaman. (but seriously ...?)

Seems at least as creative an idea as "splicing" in "Batman Beyond"...

I liked King Fu Hustle" too, and I'm not really a fan of the genre...

On the subject of superhero movies, I'm a little shocked nobody mentioned Unbreakable. I personally love this movie on so many levels, it's in my top 10 for sure. It's  kind of a dark origin story that's a little slow in parts (due to the fact it was originally going to be a trilogy and they weren't working with megabucks), and *SPOILER*






the hero kills at the end.  But all in all it's a great movie, especially with the deleted scenes left in.