Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Superman's had not one but two definitive movies: SUPERMAN, or SUPERMAN RETURNS, whichever you prefer. He's had an actor intimately associated with the part (namely, Chris Reeves) and hell, he's got definitive MUSIC. Only a few have definitive music. You can have an Indiana Jones movie without Harrison Ford, but you can't have an Indy picture without the "Raiders March."

In fact, the Superman movies have been so influential that people think of

Batman got his definitive film treatment with MASK OF THE PHANTASM - a movie that captured who the character was successfully and brilliantly. It duplicated Batman's pulp world, and gave him a mystery to solve. BATMAN: THE MOVIE was fantastic, though the fact it was a comedy/parody disqualifies it from "definitive" status, though for my money, the casting was fantastic: Burgess Meredith and that funny laugh of his, that manic genius Frank Gorshin, the sexy Lee Meriwether. As much as it pains me to say it as he is a countryman of mine, only Cesar Romero didn't look like he was trying.

A lot of other characters have not been so lucky as Superman has been.

The first person that comes right to mind is Tarzan...which is strange, because he's had over 100 movies - most of which as a monosyllabic caveman very different from his dynamic Burroughs incarnation. The most frustrating part about Tarzan is that every movie version has gotten SOMETHING "right," in little bits and pieces, but nobody has ever brought all of it together: GREYSTOKE brought Tarzan's aristocratic birth and the Greystoke heritage (which most movies ignore), the Disney film captured his athleticism, his curiosity, and his pranksterish side, and most importantly, is the best screen treatment of Tarzan's relationship to his ape mother yet shown, in many ways the most powerful relationship in the first book, based on the love of a mother for a child. 

Though it swept the first-ever Raspberry awards, defies parody, and features Ator himself, Miles O'Keefe ("How much Keefe? MILES O'Keefe!"), I can't help but feel underneath it all, TARZAN THE APE-MAN had a good idea inside of it: in the Tarzan books there is an undercurrent of real eroticism. Alan Moore once observed this undercurrent of sex is the single biggest difference between the pulp heroes from the later superheroes. I suspect this is why Tarzan has appeal as a character beyond the usual audience of adventure-loving teenaged boys and not-quite-grown-up adults: sex appeal. Though I wouldn't recommend taking it to the level of softcore porn the way APE-MAN did.

It feels like the story of the blind man with the elephant: every movie's got PART of Tarzan down.

The most annoying part about Tarzan is that he may never get a definitive version with the way Hollywood is today.

Robert E. Howard's Conan is another character that's yet to get a truly definitive treatment, as much as I absolutely love CONAN THE DESTROYER, it felt like another issue of the CONAN comics (and there's a reason for that - it was written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway). DESTROYER is the kind of movie you make when you've got an unkillable adventure franchise on the level of James Bond...you make this movie after you make the flick that absolutely takes everybody's breath away, the RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Conan never got his RAIDERS or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. He got a truly unwatchable first film and a second film that feels more like the tenth Conan movie instead of the second.

More than anything, CONAN THE DESTROYER feels like a movie from an alternate universe where CONAN THE BARBARIAN wasn't such a snoozer, and it led to a Conan movie franchise like Indy, Tarzan, or James Bond.

Doc Savage and the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft are two pulp fiction concepts that have been attempted but have never produced anything memorable.

Prince Valiant deserves a knock-your-socks-off movie adaptation and all it's gotten is Robert Wagner in a pageboy wig. Hey, Bakshi, here's an idea: why not put down the bong and do an animated Valiant, in the style of Hal Foster? This is one of few adventure concepts that deserves animation more than live action.

Though some may disagree, I don't see the need for a Fantastic Four, Shadow, Phantom, or Flash Gordon movie because they've GOTTEN their definitive version. With the FF, it's the seventies animated series - the voice casting was so spot-on I STILL hear Ben Grimm's voice when I read my MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE issues. And I can't possibly think of any way a contemporary movie version could possibly be a step up from the seventies Filmation Flash Gordon cartoon. The Phantom and Shadow movies both stayed period, captured the dominant character elements.

I'd argue even Superman hasn't had a definitive movie treatment.  Or anyway, nothing made up til now has fully captured the character the way I imagine him.  The only thing "definitive" (as in, no need to ever attempt it again) about Superman: The Movie is John William's theme.  And Superman Returns, though I really like it, can't be definitive for the simple reason that it is so darn derivative.  (If it were a definition, it would read simply, "see Superman: The Movie").

The closest thing to a definitive treatment of Superman on screen remains the Fleischer cartoons.

I agree about Tarzan.  The funny thing is I always get the impression people shy away from the literate nobleman approach because they think it would strain credulity.  Raised by apes?  No problem.  Able to kill lions with his bare hands?  Done.  Lives in the wild but never grows a beard?  Fine.  But able to read and write, hold a conversation and understand science and politics?  Come on, that's just silly.  :D

Also, while I liked some things about Russell Mulcahy's Shadow film, I would never term it definitive.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Sam Raimi does with the concept.  (Obviously the less said about George Pal's Doc Savage the better, though I for one am grateful the Schwartzenegger version never got off the ground).

I'm all for trying over again...every character is open to reinterpretation.  It's only been a couple years since the Hulk but since it went over like a lead balloon they're already working on a do-over in a new style.  That's cool with me.  But then, I'm a guy who likes all 6 James Bonds (to varying degrees), so I'm big on variety.

Having said that, I think "definitive" can be a very subjective thing.  No matter how many times they do Batman, Adam West will always be the genuine article for me.  And "Flash Gordon" is by now defined almost as much by Buster Crabbe's hyperactivity and goofy FX as he is by Alex Raymond's art and plots.  But first isn't always best; I consider Jeremy Brett as close to a "definitive" Holmes as we'll ever get.  I'm willing to see other actors take a stab, but if they stopped doing Holmes films today, I'd be content knowing the Grenada series got it right.

I will say this.  Considering how many pulp and comic characters there are, it gets a bit boring seeing the umpteen-millionth version of Superman and Batman instead.  But I dont' think that was your point.

Didn't the Fantastic Four animated series NOT have the human torch in it? I've never seen it, but heard about it. I agree about Doc Savage...too bad there were never any movie serials.

Characters that haven't had their due time on screen: Green Lantern, the Justice Society, Supergirl (I'd really like to see her introduced into the Superman movie series), and Captain America...wow, did his movie stink! And any character that has been portrayed by Dolph Lundgren has not yet had a definitive treatment...the Masters of the Universe movie made me highly upset as a kid.

That's right, the 70s FF cartoon did not have the Human Torch.  If memory serves, some other studio had optioned him for a rival project, though in the end they never did anything.

Johnny was replaced by H.E.R.B.I.E. the "lovable" robot, who is more or less to FF fans what Bat-Mite is to Batman fans.  :P


(http://www.progressiveboink.com/b/images/hanna/herbie.jpg)

Hi yall! Don't be hatin'!

It's neat how Ted Cassidy played a mute Thing in the Addams Family (along with being Lurch, his signautre role), then only the voice of (the) Thing in the '70s cartoon.  He was also the voice actor for Lou Ferrigno in The Incredible Hulk TV series, doing the grunts and growls, and Braniac and Black Manta on the Superfriends.

Anything with H.E.R.B.I.E. in it isn't definitive.  :)

Four words: John Carter of Mars.

Mainly, 'cuase there hasn't been one to date (other than Bob Clampett's aborted JCOM toon in the 30s and a billion other 'announced' projects)

Imagine if Charlton Heston circa Apes or Clint Eastwood circa Spaghetti-os had made the leap -- always think of Clint when seeing Murphy Anderson's great art in the DC run of JCOM in Tarzan and Weird Worlds back in the 70s.

When I was reading Judge Dredd in "2000AD" in his heyday, I was convinced Clint would make a fantastic Dredd. He would have had the sense of humour, the slim build, and the lower jaw to pull it off. (I'm talking about Dredd WAY before Americans ever got near him, so it may be hard to explain Clint's suitability. Once the yanks got hold of Dredd, they left out everything that made him work, because they didn't get it. As usual.) Clint could have been seconded to the Europeans one last time without any other American involvement.

Also reading the comics in their heyday, I always wanted to see Clint play Jonah Hex, but that was a kid's wish. It wouldn't have made much sense.

Wasn't Clint pretty much playing Jonah Hex in "Hang Em High" anyway?

Although James Garner woulda made the perfect Bat Lash since Bat was pretty much Maverick anyway?

I think the definitive Lovecraft movie has been made, although not widely seen: The Call of Cthulhu (http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/) is a new, black & white silent film of the first short story, produced as if it were made around the same time that the story was published.

Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers deserve the definitive treatment. Most of the classic pulp and serial heroes are probably on the way. I recall Sam Raimi's in pre-production on the Shadow.

One of my sources confirmed (hush hush and on the QT here) that which was rumored: Raimi's scored all the Street & Smith biggies and after The Shadow is............









 Doc

I don't think he was. "Hang 'Em High" is yet another example of the yanks trying to duplicate something European, only to prove they didn't get it the first time around.

But it's sort of what I was getting at. Was early Jonah from "Weird Western" not a rip-off clone of Manco? Of course he was. So for Clint to play a rip-off of himself would be a little odd... even incestuous.

At this point, I'd be happy as a pig in horse manure with John Carter getting ANY movie treatment. Definitive can wait once we've got ONE version.

It really bugs me when overpriveledged Batman or X-Men fans complain about how their pet idea took years to become a movie. What, a whole ten years? Boo-hoo.

John Carter of Mars has been in Development Hell, on and off, since 1932. To give some perspective here, it almost became the first full-length animated feature of all time under Bud Clampett. Later on, Ray Harryhausen tried to get the project started for years. And they wanted Tom Cruise to be John Carter, and to give some perspective here, this was back when casting Tom Cruise as a man from Mars wouldn't be quite as appropriate as it is today.

I agree, HERBIE and Bat-Mite are among my all-time favourite characters!!!!!

Rumor hath it that JCOM is going to be animated!  Chickens!

For a glimpse at Bob Clampett's test footage pick up the Best of Beany & Cecil dvd.  Sad it was never green lit but Im sure the cost would have been quite prohibitive.  Very much in the Fleischer tradition before there WAS a Flesicher Superman!

You're sick and you need help.

Man alive are you acting grumpy lately.

Are you ok, or are you just joking around?

Super Monkey, are you referring to moi ?

yes sir

I've found everything that Aldous has said in the last couple of weeks to be very negative and criticizing so I don't read his posts anymore.

Aldous is right on the money with this one.

You see, every man sees the personification of all evil differently. For Tolkien, it was spiders. For Robert E. Howard, it was serpents.

For me, it's magical midgets.

REVENGE IS LIFE!
DEATH TO MOPEE AND BAT-MITE!

I like Bat-Mite for the same reasons that you hate him, LOL.

He was part of that weird magical imp craze at DC at the time, even Aquaman had one!

http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/silverage/Quisp-Aquaman01_05.jpg

Classic Superheroes had many spin-off stock characters:

Sidekicks
Female counterparts
Hero pets
Evil Version of him/herself
Magical Imps
Cartoon Animal counterparts


I am sure there are some more.

Spider-Man is another character that has yet to receive a "definitive" movie treatment, I think.

SPIDER-MAN and DAREDEVIL came out soon after one another, but most people universally loved SPIDER-MAN (it made tons of dough) and despised DAREDEVIL...but my reaction was flipped: I found DAREDEVIL a watchable and unpretentious action flick with many fantastic moments, on the level of the popcorn-munching Soderbergh MUMMY movies...and I found SPIDER-MAN a badly edited waste of time.

They just didn't get the character. They had Spider-Man silent as a ninja during battles. This may not sound like much, but it really is. Having Spider-Man be silent and not wisecrack shows a major lack of understanding of the character's personality. Spider-Man is a character that spends his whole existence as Peter Parker biting a hole through his tongue: he has to keep still when that old goat, his boss, J. Jonah, makes money off Spider-Man's gloom. But being Spider-Man is a release for Parker, it's when he can say what he's thinking and escape a frustrating, boring existence. More than anything, Parker enjoys being Spider-Man because of this escapist element.

In the movie, they didn't have gadget web-shooters. Again, this may sound like a minor, cosmetic change, but it really isn't. Spider-Man needs gadget web shooters to show that he has BRAINS - he's a scientific wunderkind. Also...there's a REASON Lee and Ditko back in the day had the webs emerged from a gadget: they wanted Spider-Man to be as likeable as possible despite the fact spiders are icky, a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," and webs being produced by a person is rather grotesque.

CGI Spider-Man is the worst excess of the entire phenomenon. The reason JURASSIC PARK still looks good today is because the CGI there was their last choice, not their first. Even the Harryhausen claymation epics still look better than CGI films made as little as a few years ago, because no matter how good CGI gets, it still can't give you a sense of a real object.

Christ almighty, was Mary Jane boring. How can a character as vivacious and sexy and full of life as MJ get watered down into a generic high school dream girl?

This is just scratching the surface here. The only character they got spot-on was the wonderful J. Jonah Jameson...who worked for that very reason.

Worst of all, the movies are edited and paced all wrong. If we had to take out every scene of Spider-Man buying an ice cream cone and looking up at the sky, the movie would be 15 minutes shorter. And there are some scenes that just contribute nothing - Spider-Man having cake with his landlord's daughter, for instance. Aunt May's voiceover monologue going ON and ON and ON...

When Spider-Man gets another movie series maybe 10-15 years down the road, I predict we'll all look back on the Toby MacGuire movies the same way we look at the Keaton Batman films: their flaws will be made more apparent by much better and truer versions like BEGINS and PHANTASM.


Adam Strange had one as well, if I recall.

The most obvious one we're forgetting is the FF's Impossible Man.

In an interview, Roy Thomas said his greatest contribution to the Fantastic Four was the return of the Impossible Man. Gee, thanks, Roy.  :P

I mean, first Roy the Boy replaced the Thing with Luke Cage, and then he returned the only character in the initial twenty issues of FF that was deservedly not seen again for a decade. I have a question, Roy: you're a legend and all, but with your FF run...did you do anything right?

Seriously, people, just think about that: a villain that was in the first 25 issues of Fantastic Four, yet was not seen again for more than a decade. There was a joke in a Gerber HOWARD THE DUCK, that just about any comics fan can name the villains in the first 25 issues of FF by heart. It's like a soothing mantra and it rolls off the tongue without any thought at all.

It's like being able to list the tracks in Sgt. Pepper or the Joshua Tree. If you're white, you can probably do it. In fact, if I had to prevent the Children of the Corn from reading my thoughts, remembering the first 25 villains is what I'd use to distract their telepathy.

I'm most surprised Hate-Monger was seen after his appearance. I mean, where do you go with a character, after the ending where you reveal they're really Hitler?

Even minor villains that appear in the first few issues of X-Men, like Unus and the Vanisher, were a consistent presence in the X-Books for years. And even the early, lame Daredevil villains, like the Purple Man and Stilt-Man, appeared with some regularity. Yet, Impossible Man was not seen again (and probably wouldn't have been, ever, if not for Roy).

The only other character I can even begin to compare this slight to is the forgettable "living robot" character from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #7, who was only seen again in the late eighties.

Getting back to your comment...this is the 'cookie jar' defense, "everybody ELSE was doing it!" is no excuse for Bat-Mite.

The fact that other superheroes have villains like Bat-Mite is a weak defense because it doesn't do any credit to Batman's uniqueness as a character. Bat-Mite doesn't belong in Batman's nocturnal, pulp fiction world.

While Mxyzptlk is a humorous character with a great personality and a niche in Superman's rogues gallery (my personal favorite Mxy stories are by Martin Pasko, who played up personality elements of his character like his vanity), other characters of ths type are considerably less successful not just because they're copying the formula, but because their Robin Williams on crack antics aren't funny.


The only creatively successful examples of character types you mention that I can think of... are characters that have so thoroughly established their uniqueness apart from the hero that birthed them.

In fact, I'd argue the reason the Valkyrie was so interesting was that nobody thinks of her as "She-Thor."

This too, is why Ms. Marvel needs the Avengers just as much as Hawkeye or the Scarlet Witch does; it gives her a history and identity apart from Captain Marvel.

I was of a divided mind on the web-shooter thing. It does help to illustrate Peters science smarts and well, they're just cool. At the same time, I think it is a valid question to ask why of all the attributes of a spider Peter gained he didn't get the one that is the most spidery of all? So the organic web-shooters have a certain amount of interior logic. Given my own druthers though, I would have either gone for the standard web-shooters or maybe even say that the shooters allow him to control his organic webbing into specifics like a single thread, or goo, or a net.

My biggest issue was that the costume is a little too Hollywood and Maguire is excellent when it comes to Peters angst or his geekness but he seems totally incapable of bringing across what for me is a key element of the character, Spider-Man's smartalec humor in the face of his foes. It's something that helps bring about a sense of transformation beyond just the costume. With the mask on, Peter can say exactly what he thinks.

Daredevil was just kinda laughable to me. The coffin, Elektra's candy coated sai's, the utterly ridiculous playground fight (so much for that whole secret identity thing). Also note to Hollywood, it's Radar *Sense* not Radar Vision. I recently rewatched the movie coupled with Mike Nelson's Rifftracks for it with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett sitting in with him. One of their best yet and it couldn't happen to a more deserving film.

Supposedly, the director's cut of Daredevil is pretty radically different.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0287978/alternateversions

In the film, Matt Murdock attributes it to his sense of hearing, so strictly speaking, it's sonar.

You know who I'd like to see a movie adaptation of? The Atom. Stop laughing, it would be great: a tiny guy doing acrobatics, it's very cinematic.

HTD #16 --one of my personal talismans.

True, DAREDEVIL does lend itself to being lampooned by Mike Nelson and his robot pals. But I think that's part of the appeal of DAREDEVIL, especially over the sober-minded, "dead" serious SPIDER-MAN films.

In MST3K they always spoofed watchable bad movies, like SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS and the all-midget musical western, THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN. Truly bad movies, the unwatchable kind like PATCH ADAMS or PAY IT FORWARD, they never touched.

When I saw VAN HELSING, I loved that movie, because of moments like that unbelievably over the top scene where Kate Beckinsale, with that ridiculous, Rocky n' Bullwinkle accent of hers, said, "NOTHING can outrun Transylvanian horses - not even werewolves!"

Anyway, Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy are doing riff tracks for popular movies now? Sweet Jesus, where were these guys when INDEPENDENCE DAY came out? If ever there was a movie that called to be Mistied....

Hmm. You know I think you're right that the Spider-Man movies do suffer from that. That may even be why the absence of Spidey's humor just bugs me that much more. I feel like the first one was pretty balanced at least until the ending, which sets the rather sledgehammer tone for the sequel. I love the Doc Ock stuff but a lot of it was for me a case study in how you can really overdo that whole sort of "Charlie Brown and the football" thing with Peter. Where rather than a hero who is plauged by everyday problems you and I face trying to balance them with the challenges of being a supehero, he has this absurdly cursed existance that actually makes the character *less* relatable I think. Granted in the film, some of this was used for comedic effect but still..

For MST3K, I think they hit upon some unwatchable stuff from time to time. Of course the fun there can be the humor of the guys getting bitter under the pressure. Manos definately comes to mind. Also, any Coleman Francis movie.

I'd imagine Mike will get to ID4 soon enough. The great thing about Rifftracks is since you download the track from his website and buy or rent the movie yourself and sync it up with the help of "Disembodio" (think if Magic Voice had a male sibling) then alot of the problem they faced getting films for MST3K are just no longer an issue. They've even done Star Trek V and The Fifth Element.

No, Spiderman got his defining moment.  The key aspects of his origin were there and maintained.  Although the points regarding what was missed or gotten wrong (webshooters, et al.) are well taken, the truth is that they aren't so integral to the key elements as are the death of Uncle Ben, "great power...", wrestling and the moral of the story.

The main problem with MJ is that MJ the character in the movie is really more an amalgam of Gwen Stacy and MJ.  Case in point: Goblin, the bridge, girlfriend tossed off the bridge... sound familiar?  All that was missing was the "snap".  So, looks are MJ, but character is Gwen.

Similar point, Kypton of the movie is a cold, "authortarian-by-council" society vs. the technological utopia of the comics of the time.  I could argue comic Krypton is integral to Superman, but distilled to a nutshell, it's irrelevant.  It's simply not key.  However, being of my generation, my biggest beef with the movie when it came out was "where's Superboy?"  Superboy was a key aspect of Superman for me.

I personally enjoyed Daredevil the movie.  I would have preferred more development and less Electra (not that I particularly mind Jenny), but I thought it was a good flick.  But again, many key elements remained.

In Hulk, we've got a concatenation of various origins (reconned, revised and televised) and no clear statement of his origins and motivations.  Why?  Because a very basic point was missed.  Bruce, the coward, weakling turned hero for one instant in his life and was cursed to be the Hulk as a result.  Why they missed this?  Just a huge lack of understanding of the character.

Although I wouldn't count this one as a favorite, the Fantastic Four flick was still enjoyable enough.  Tying Doom's origin into theirs wasn't particularly inspired, but at least the space/explorer/cosmic rays aspects remained.  Ben and Johnny's bull-baiting was there.  Etc.

Another movie I particularly enjoyed was the 80's Flash Gordon.  Once again, the key elements were there.  Plot to destroy Earth, Flash, Dale and Zarkov zip to Mongo.  Various swashbuckling and Aura eye-candy ensues, Flash overthrows Ming, unites Mongo.  Yeah, lots of 80's mentality, but still, worked out.

Shadow?  Don't know much, but not a terrible flick.  Phantom?  Again, don't know much.  What's interesting is that I couldn't particularly give you a clear statement about who they are after seeing the movies.  Hence the case in point.  Nothing particularly defining.

Blade, no problem.  Easy to understand the motivation and what he's about.

Captain America isn't even a movie as far as I'm concerned.  That was a movie that was ashamed about being a superhero movie.

Every hero has got some indisputable defining elements that make them who they are. 

I'm glad they didn't have the snap. Very glad.


I didn't really miss Superboy at all to be honest. With Krypton it's funny. Because watching it as a kid I didn't really see Krypton of the movies as having any negative aspect to it, it was just alien I guess. Same with the movies take on Jor-El which I didn't see as God figure or a manipulative one but rather kind of ..oh I don't know. I guess sort of like a floating head Obi-Wan or something. The wizard in the secret cave.

It was only when I got older that I began to see the movies take on Jor-El and Krypton a bit of a clearer light. I still like the whole crystaline design and I think it's a very heartfelt rendition of the goodbye/rocket launch scene (I have a soft spot for nearly any incarnation of that moment in any version of Superman). But philosophically there's something just not quite right. It's not as extreme as Byrne's Krypton where you're practically cheering for it to blow up. For me STAS had it right on the money with Krypton. You feel genuinely bad for these people who achived so much only to lose it *all* in the end.



There's a huge lack of understanding of the character in the comics as well. The Hulk movie was just long winded and pretentious garbage. My god if you can't have a little action and fun with a movie about a green monster what the heck can you have fun with? I watched that and a re-airing of the pilot for Bill Bixby series and despite all it's flaws the pilot was still the much more satisfying viewing experience. But maybe that's because I've always thought the "Hulk Smash!" version was the way to go. I thought that was interesting. A creature of anger who also has this childlike, gentle side to him that you see glimpses of just before he reverts back. I think the main thing they need to understand is that it's not Jekyl/Hyde with superpowers. The Hulk is heroic in his way but he is a superhero for whom his brain and brawn are seperated with only Banners conscience as the tether between them. The whole child abuse and MPD angle are just overkill. He becomes the Hulk because he gets mad and is loaded with gamma-rays! Who the heck can't relate to getting stress-out or mad? Do we really need the child abuse explanation for it? It always seemed pretty straightfoward to me. The price of the Hulks power is that Banner intellect receeds.


I still haven't watched this one. Their need do put Doom in a green trenchcoat and to that liquid metal thing with him really turned me off. I know they were afraid of Darth Vader comparrisons and I like Vader alot (to me the prequels are little more than filmed fanfic) but you know what? Screw him! Give Doom a big cape and big armor the way God and The King intended!


This movie is weird but you're right it does have this strange charm to it. But it is still very weird in some respects as a Flash Gordon movie. Incidentally, Alex Ross is on record as saying this is his all time favorite film.


..and now we often have superhero comics that are ashamed of being superhero comics. I still think a good Cap movie is possible. I'd almost being inclined to have the first film entirely set in WW II and then end it with Cap being put in suspended animation in order to have him in modern times for the sequel where he could hook up with SHIELD and meet Sharon Carter and Sam Jones. (Okay, so I grew up on Kirby's 70's Cap run.)

Believe it or not, I had a nifty reply to this some days ago, but then my 'puter crashed before I could submit it.

Just 2 points, really.

1. Regarding Flash Gordon - strangely all the basic elements were there though - although the acting was mediocre in the main, by Van Sindow and Dalton as well as the Vultan actor managed to keep things together.  The movie was a bit psychadelic, a la Barberella, but, still it was a charming flick.  I could still use a nice epic version of the piece.

2. Regarding Captain America - I don't know about you, but the most fun part of the movie was the WW2 battle before the rocket.  Then that was it.  No more movie.  Ah well, some day.  cap's one of my favorites.

The more I think about it, the more I absolutely love DAREDEVIL, and it's all for the cast. Bullseye is the greatest villain ever - he has a wonderful, very twisted sense of humor and he's successful in stealing the film. The "you're good babe, but me, I'm magic" scene was great because it was so unexpected. Michael Clark Duncan plays the Kingpin, but like Cathy Bates in TITANIC, he realized what an over the top film it all is, and he appropriately hammed it up.

It's strange, but DAREDEVIL actually may be the single most romantic superhero movie ever. Matt Murdoch is a doomed, cynical man who is staggeringly cold, that's ultimately redeemed and saved by Electra and the power of love. The "love story" isn't tacked on as an aside, it's the core of the story and what makes the character likable. I was suspicious of the casting of a movie star like "Ben Whoffleck" as a superhero, but it works because of the radioactive chemistry between Ben and Jen. both their characters are isolated, and Matt's in a world of utter darkness.

Like, SKY CAPTAIN, it isn't the special effects that made this picture, it's the cute little bits like Giovanni Ribisi chewing gum and reading comics. Likewise, with DAREDEVIL, the movie was made by the heart-in-a-blender scene where Matt uses raindrops to see Electra for the first time.

Even the aforementioned playground fight isn't quite as goofy as it sounds because the actors have such a great exchange that the fight becomes a weird kind of foreplay. It's funny, I've never thought much of Ben or Jen Gardner, but together on screen they managed to be greater than the sum of their parts.


I love the Flash Gordon movie, but the Filmation cartoon series (which JUST came out on DVD! Yeah, baby!) did it way better.

Man, Sam Jones trying hard to hide his Southern accent is almost as unintentionally funny as the Estonian chick trying to be the All-American Girl in the Mistie favorite, WERE-WILF. He sure did deserve that Raspberry Award, that's for sure.

But I gotta disagree they got everything right. Flash Gordon as a football playing meathead? Flash Gordon in the comics was a Polo Player, an educated, WASP-ish Ivy League aristocrat, a characterization Buster Crabbe used in a very subtle way. Flash is something of an idealist and humanitarian, and if he lived today would probably be in the Peace Corps. In conclusion, Flash Gordon is much more like Jack from LOST than Terry Bradshaw.

And while Topol is one of my top five favorite actors of all time, he was totally wrong for Dr. Hans Zarkoff. Zarkoff, in the comics was a rugged, tough guy that whlle he is a great scientist, he always gave a Hemingway-esque vibe as a guy at home on the docks pounding drinks and getting into barfights. Topol, bless him, is not a tough guy. What was Robert Culp doing that year? He would be a great Zarkoff.

FLASH GORDON reminds me exactly why it is that when they do movie versions of older characters, they make the hero's girlfriend a gutsy asskicker, because the alternative is Melody Anderson in this. Heck, even Willie from TEMPLE OF DOOM had a couple funny moments.

Remember in THE PRODUCERS where they cast the flamingly gay director as Hitler, and the play becomes a hit because people assume it's camp instead of bad taste? I get a definite feeling Sam Jones was intentionally playing Flash as gay for the camp value. From the football scene that looked more a tickle fight, or the numerous bondage scenes, or the zero chemistry with him and any other woman in the film, or the tank top shirt...

Then again, even a gay guy would prefer the mindblowingly sexy Italian Ornella Muti over whatshername. Beard alert!

I absolutely love the weird psychadelia of the film, and its bright colors. And it may have the greatest musical score of all time, by Queen, the greatest band in human history. Freddy Mercury could belt out the phone book and it would be righteously rockin', but have him cry out triumphant, hair-metal-ish lines like "No one but the pure in heart will find the Golden Grail" skyrockets the soundtrack to greatness.


I don't know about that. Mary Jane was vanilla when she wasn't downright annoying, yet for some reason Parker's in love with her and thinks she's marvelous. If the writer of the script was a woman, I'd assume MJ was a Mary Sue avatar.

I agree with Criadoman that they merged MJ with Gwen, but they failed to learn the lesson the comics did: the reason they killed Gwen off in the first place was because she was just plain boring. She was Melody Anderson to Mary Jane's Ornella Muti, far less sexy and vivacious. If Gwen lived, she'd be just another Ex-Spider-Girlfriend, like Liz Allen and Betty Brant. But she died, an act that made her something else entirely, worthy of the last issue of MARVELS.

I said this before: the only reason anybody cares about Gwen today is because she died.

Same thing with Captain Marvel: he's one death that should never be undone, because alive, Cap'd be just another space hero trotted out for a cameo in space stories like Thanos War. But his death, and of cancer no less, elevates him to a different status altogether. People remember Captain Marvel because he died, and that may be the greatest gift that Jim Starlin, or any writer for that matter, can give a character.


I wouldn't call it so much cold, as I would call it "big" and "biblical." The Kryptonians talk like characters in Bible movies. Charleton Heston would make a great Jor-El. Unlike Nightwing, I was very excited about the possibility of seeing Krypton again in SUPERMAN RETURNS, because they didn't really get it right the first time: except for the cool glowing pajamas, it all looked so very cheap.

Agreed.  There were little tidbits throughout the film made this movie worth it to me any day.


I liked that part, but admittedly there was a slight "wince factor" for me.  I've never been terribly big on super-heros blatantly using their abilities like that, in "normal identity" and in view of many people (even if it was just kids).  But, it was enjoyable enough.



Agreed again!  The Filmation version is one of my all-time favorite cartoons (ranking up there with the Fleisher Superman series from the 40's).  There was a time when Filmation was so incredible - it was something.  I remember before the Saturday morning series, they played it on prime-time on NBC.  Phenomenal, from everything from the art work, to the 1930's style ships; it was just incredible.

Also, I liked Dalton much better in this flick than the Rocketeer (another great flick).


I disagree here.  I thought for the movie, Sam was just fine.  Cheesy - but fine for this movie.


Well, I believe they got everything right to it's irreducible minimums, or the absolute minimum they could get away with to call it "Flash Gordon", contrarily to the 1998 Godzilla which by any other name could have been called "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". 

Even a football playing "meathead" (as written by the movie writer or portrayed by the director) put in a position like this might respond accordingly - maybe not for the alturistic goals that I think Flash would really likely have, but at minimumly for glory and the game, the team being "Earth".  I know and am friends with some pretty high up football "meatheads" personally who either coached the NCAA or played ball professionally in the NFL.  "Meathead" wouldn't even be on my list of descriptive terms for these guys.  "Intelligent", "caring" and "interested in others' welfare" would be 3 of my 1st terms.  They didn't have to make him a meathead because he's a ball player.  But still, it is fortunate that that "meathead" isn't played up more in the movie.  On a slightly similar note - one of the funnier parts of the flick was when he had a telepathic rapport with Dale and Aurora starts messing with him - and he thinks how hot she was.  Dale telling him she didn't get that last though was funny.  Aurora was a babe!!!  However, in the middle of circumstances such as he was in, sex wouldn't be the 1st thing on my mind.

It's rather interesting that even the more recent DC take on the character was a basketball player - although I did like their take on Ming, and Mongo.  The series would work a lot better as a Vertigo title IMO, and to really get into the adult themes. 

However, I guess "polo" = "sports" = "popular sports" = "football" = "basketball".  "Class", "honor" and "equestrian" are more important to me for Flash than "sports". 


Agreed.  He took a lot of getting used too.


I hadn't thought of that before.  Now that I think about it, there was that sub-text in the film.  Funny.


It is those qualities that endeared the film to me.  Queen absolutely rocks, and I can't think of a more perfect choice to that film.  But, good heavy metal generally has that epic quality to me.  Like Sabbath, Dio and Priest - there's often times a little sci-fi and apocolyptic edge to the music, and it does work on a level.


Agreed, agreed, agreed!!!  Don't get me started on this point!  Outside of just plain shock value type stories (a la imaginary stories or the infamous Superman death story) - a dead character should stay dead if the story was intended to kill them.  Phoenix was intended to die for a reason.  Jason Todd was intended to die for a reason (albeit rather shoddy one), etc.



What little we did see of Krypton in the trailers did get me pretty excited.  darn the cutting room!!!  Bring me the cut footage Singer!!!!

I would have appreciated a little "George Lucas used universe" philosophy here.  This and the cheap quality is probably what gave me the cold impression, as I certainly got nothing biblical out of this.  But, now that you mention it - and I'm not too thrilled for having seen it now (the biblical quality of Krypton) - a white crystalline Krypton could be likened to a version of "Heaven", with Zod and his minions being "cast out" into hell.  I would have been more inclined to a utopian society that you would have really been bummed that got destroyed.

Still, I see the Byrne's Krypton pretty much the same as I do the movie one - cold, desolate and sterile.  I took their talking as highly intelligent more than biblical, not that I can't see the comparison here.  However, the main characters in biblical flicks that I can recall in the early days of epic biblical films were also ruling class type people who in turn are or were expected to be highly intelligent.  Let us not forget that once, intelligence, science and religion were much the same thing for a long time - particularly during the Egyptian, Babalon, Greecian and even Roman days, as well as the Asian and eastern cultures.  In the west, it was mainly during the last days of Rome into the middle ages and forward that things start splitting severely. 

As an anecdote, did you know that alchemy was never originally the "science" of turning lead to gold, but rather the attempt to convert the lead of the human body into the gold of the human spirit?  Interesting stuff, religious history.

Anyway, once again Julian, your thoughts and observations are rather thought provoking and it is fun to have these discussions with you.  Now I'd better get back to work on K-Metal or Rao might cast me out into the "Zone". (Ha ha)

You can judge how successful a "love story" subplot is by how important it is to the rest of the movie.

If the story would be the same whether the love story is there or not (e.g. THE MUMMY, TOTAL RECALL) it's really not worth doing.

By that standard, the love story in DAREDEVIL is well done because it gets to the core of the character: a dark, cold guy that is redeemed by love, who in the end spares the Kingpin when previously he was merciless. The plot twists are all centered on the Electra/Daredevil relationship.


The playground fight reminds me a lot of the fights in THE PRINCESS BRIDE, where violence is almost playful. I expected Matt Murdock to say something like, "I'm really left-handed."


Boy, you sure said a mouthful. My all-time favorite was the Filmation Tarzan cartoon - which may be the best time that La was ever presented on screen. Or maybe I'm just saying that because of how crazy I am for Oparian gorillas with helmets and spears.

Then you have their forgotten gem, BLACKSTAR - which is about a black version of He-Man. The kicker is, Blackstar actually came FIRST, though his show only lasted for several episodes (and Blackstar's sorceress girlfriend, and his enemy, the Overlord, were actually played by the same voice actors as Teela and Skeletor). Watching BLACKSTAR is like listening to the original black singers sing the tunes Elvis made famous.

The best thing about Filmation is how wonderfully detailed their backgrounds are. The best was the Kukulkan story in the STAR TREK animated series, where there was this astonishing ancient Mesoamerican city that Kirk and his lackeys beamed into. It's so detailed it had to be seen to be believed.


I didn't mean to generalize about all footballers or athletes, but my point here is this: what sport Flash plays isn't a little or cosmetic detail. Having Flash be a footballer implies a totally different characterization.

Having Flash be a polo player implies a lot of things: aristocracy, gentlemanly conduct, WASPishness, New England upbringing, etc. Football, on the other hand, implies other things: more humble beginnings, etc. Bruce Wayne plays polo. Ben Grimm played football.


One thing I did like about that series was how it had the Mongites be blue. There was always something vaguely racist and Oriental about Ming the Merciless, with him as Fu Manchu and his daughter as a cross between Barbie the Barbarian and the Dragon Lady. Having them be blue deflects racism, and also has a very neat Edgar Rice Burroughs-esque vibe.

This is also what Kiwi Pete Jackson did with KING KONG and the Skull Island tribesmen; incidentally, did they remind anybody else of Robert E. Howard's Picts?

Man, the FLASH GORDON cast was a miniature U.N. You had Israeli Topol, English Timothy Dalton and Brian Blessed, Swedish Max von Sydow, Italian Ornella Muti, and Americans like Sam Jones.


Hmm, you might be on to something here. It's no coincidence there have been many porno versions of Flash Gordon. It has a kind of 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS-style barbaric, exotic sexuality about the entire concept.


Some people are really hard-assed about character death, saying dead means dead always without exceptions. I'm a bit more flexible, and I think it all depends.. Some dead characters can be brought back to life, and some dead characters shouldn't: it all depends on the character, the hows and whys of their death, and the kind of comic they're in.

An example of what I mean is someone like the original Swordsman; his story, his arc is finished; there's no REASON to bring him back. The Swordsman's death fit his character.

Then again, you have someone like Hal Jordan or Patsy Walker. One can argue that it wasn't wrong for them to be brought back because they shouldn't have died in the first place; the circumstances of their deaths were unsatisfying or out of character. Bringing them back would be correcting a mistake.

Then again, I'd be a lot less accepting of characters returning from the dead in a comic like LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, TEEN TITANS, or X-MEN, because part of the thing that makes reading a team comic like that unique is that you see characters in books like this get older; they are allowed to develop and feel "real" and that includes, sometimes, death.


Though I am much more of a fan of the original trilogy by an order of magnitude...I have to admit, as heretical as it sounds, the art decoration and design of the second batch of flicks appeals to me a lot more: the swept-back fighter ships that look like something out of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, the chrome, sleek Queen's spaceship, the giant Hugo Gernsback-esque city-planet...as much as I loved the original WARS movies, the inside of the Millennium Falcon always resembled the A.V. room at my high school.


All this is interesting stuff. The Jewish/Rabbinical traditions' contributions to Alchemy also are pretty interesting. Metal as metaphor for spirit can be found in the layout of the Temple of Solomon: interestingly enough, the innermost sanctum's table was made of copper instead of gold or silver. And the majority of equipment used in Alchemy was invented by a Jewish woman in Alexandria in the first millennium.


You only say that because you haven't heard me mouth off about Grant Morrison.  ;D

Unfortunately, I hate the Daredevil film so much that I can't even read your posts, Julian. It used all the elements that Miller brought to the character and killed them for no reason. Ben Urich, for instance, is the easiest character to write in the world, so they gave him a beret and about twenty years younger than he should have been. Bullseye is not Irish. The Elektra subplot was silly. And yet, the actors in the film were perfect: Ben Affleck is a great Matt Murdock, and thingamajig is a great Elektra, and whatsisname is a really great Kingpin (in fact, the interpretation of the Kingpin was great). They had all that, and they blew it for no reason.

I loved that movie!


Boy - did you just bring back a flood of memories!  These are the shows I watched immediately after the Superfriends.  I'm feeling sorry for my kids right now.  We grew up with some of the niftiest cartoons.  Tarzan was incredible.  I loved Zorro and the Lone Ranger.  Then the Batman 'toon!  I used to get so mad that Filmation didn't do a more recent Superman 'toon.  How wonderful would that have been?  The animation would have been so on par with the old Fleisher stuff.  Good stuff!!!


Their backgrounds were stunning, but it was their in-between work that I was most impressed with.  Although often you'd get the same motion sequence (Tarzan jumping, swimming; He-Man jumping) - they did so many more in-between images that the motion just flowed vs. the slight choppyness of 'toons today (unless computer animated or made by Disney).  The quality of product was phenomenal.


I see your point. 


Dan Jurgens was the artist - which I thought was kinda interesting.  It's worth reading when you can get your hands on it.

Yup - Skull Island had Frazetta written all over it.

And, on the movie, the international cast was actually another very charming aspect of the flick to me.


Wow - how could I forget the infamous name "Flesh Gordon"?  Whatever.

I would think if one could get away with it, one could have a lot of fun "maturing" Flash and co.  Go ahead and have fun in a barrierless medium.  Heck, even Batman went mature in Dark Knight - and look where he ended up.


Yup.  Why bring back Bucky?  Bucky's accident actually really made me feel for Cap.  I'm surprised Jarella isn't back yet at the rate we're going in Marvel resurrection land.

I think George actually had money to invest on such things in the 2nd trilogy.   :D
But - the fact is that Mr. Campbell's wonderful pulp mag was quite likely one of the actual sources of the ships we see in our wonderful Flash Gordon strips, and Buck Rogers, and our own tiny little infant from Krypton.  I love that style of ship.



Just goes to show, kids, know your history!

Who's Grant Morrison? ::)