10 Reasons B-List Comics Make Better Adaptations Than The A-List
"Some motherf**kers are always trying to ice skate uphill."
Comic book adaptations are absolutely everywhere. At one time there were next to none and the very notion was considered a risky investment that had to be toned down as much as possible. Today, we live in a world where you can't change the hue of Apocalypse's skin without the internet exploding.
Despite their success, the attitude towards comic books in film and TV is still a strange one; the bigger they are, it seems, the more "compromised" they're perceived as becoming.
When Christopher Reeve made us all believe a man could fly and Michael Keaton made us tell all our friends about him, there was a huge audience reception and massive critical acclaim. Since then, not all A-List adaptations have been bad, but it's rare to see one that's complex, challenging or even truly respectful to the source material.
Instead, it's been left to some of the medium's smaller players (basically the heroes most people had never heard of) to provide the quality, complexity and faithfulness to the spirit of the original works.
If you're sick of seeing pearls fall into a puddle then you've come to the right place.
10. Emotional Resonance: The Crow
"It can't rain all the time"
Eric Draven comes home to find is wife brutally raped and beaten. He is tortured, shot and thrown out of a window. One year later he rises from the grave to put the wrong things right.
Written by James O'Barr, The Crow was a tool for the artist and writer to try and process the senseless loss of his girlfriend and soon to be wife at the hands of a drunk driver. It was a labour of love that took time and great effort to complete, and it gained cult status before eventually being selected for film adaptation.
The finished product made some compromises, sure, but it resonated with audiences deeply and gained a cult following all of it's own. It was a fantastic story of loss, revenge and life after death. A feverish fable, this visually unique and tonally powerful film has every A-list Comic book film beat for heart and drama.
James O'Barr recalled in an interview that at one point studio executives discussed making it a musical and inserting Michael Jackson as Eric Draven. Just close your eyes and imagine that for a minute...