10 Movies That Abandoned The Source Material (For The Better)
8. Captain America: Civil War
If you want a poster child for a comic book that's adapted in name only, with everything else being swept under the rug where it belongs, look for anything by comic writer Mark Millar.
To me, Millar is a scam artist, and the scam is as follows:
Make a comic book, fill it with the most vile, reprehensible, offensive content you can, wait for everyone to talk about how horrible it is, thus ratcheting up sales, get a movie deal which will inevitably result in something completely different from the original, cutting out every awful thing you put in, then sit back and rake in the royalties.
Rinse, repeat until the 2000's comic scene is filled with dark and repulsive guff, due to the rest of the industry copying your homework.
While his Marvel and DC work (which is, of course, much more restrained) can be excellent at points - Civil War is divisive, to say the least.
Which is why when the Russo Bros. were put in charge of adapting Civil War, they changed everything but the most basic premise. Making a story with the same impact on the Marvel Universe as its comic book counterpart, but nowhere near as violent, mean-spirited, or poorly thought out as the original.