10 Comic Book Tie-Ins That Made Great Movies Better
8. Die Hard: Year One
Die Hard is one of those films that everyone knows. John McClane is a cop in the wrong place at the wrong time as terrorist-thieves take over Nakatomi Tower, and it's up to him to cowboy his way through the lot.
The success and legacy of the film has spawned four sequels of varying quality, as well as spawning the "Die Hard On A..." genre of films, so a prequel series was only logical. While the potential Die Hard 6: McClane movie is in production hell, there is already a prequel look at the character in Die Hard: Year One, made 20 years after the original.
The series ran for eight issues and is set in 1976, with a rookie patrolman John McClane having to take on the evil Alan Douglas who's taken an entire yacht hostage. There's large shades of the original Die Hard in this, particularly with the twist of Alan not actually being a terrorist. By the end, though, John has earned his detective shield. The second arc has John dealing with a hostage situation in a massage parlor during a city-wide blackout. It also introduces his future ex-wife, Holly.
Seeing the past and events that shaped the cynical views of McClane in Die Hard is just a treat.