So, as I'm sure most of you can tell at this point, I am an ardent DC Comics fan. However, I'm not biased. I fully appreciate Marvel characters, what they've done for the medium, and how their characters have evolved over the years. While I have made a consistant effort to read more Marvel books, I keep finding myself asking why Marvel doesn't make more animated movies like DC does with their DC Universe Original Animated Movies? With DC OAM, audiences are given popular DC Comics storylines brought to life in animation. Such as The Death/Return of Superman (yes, I know Superman:Doomsday was VERY loosely based on that storyline), Batman/Superman:Public Enemies, Superman/Batman: Supergirl, and Batman: Under the Hood. In my opinion, they not only appealed to fans of those storylines, but they also enlightened or inspired people who hadn't read those stories to read them. If anything, I think these movies have expanded my appreciation and love for those storylines.
Now, the main point of this editorial is not to ask why Marvel doesn't follow in DC's footsteps and make more animated movies. This editorial is basically a chance for me to convey to you, out of the stories I've read, which Marvel storylines would translate well to animated features, in my opinion.
1. The Winter Soldier storyline: With the "Ultimate Avengers" 1 and 2 movies, we have already seen the origin of Captain America. We've seen how he became who he is and how this man out of time fits into the present world. Now, lets see him face one of his greatest ghosts: The return of his thought to be dead sidekick, Bucky Barnes. This storyline was nearly as good as Batman:Under The Hood, in my opinion. It shows not only the return of Bucky Barnes, but in a lethal and deformed way. Seeing Cap deal with a brainwashed, evil Bucky who is nearly his equal in combat would not only make the movie extremely emotional, but action packed. Plus, it would finally go in depth into Captain America's past.
2. Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle: Yes, I know this would create a bit of a touchy subject as animated movies are generally aimed towards kids, but if you make it PG 13 like the DC movies, then the storyline of Tony Stark not only facing alcoholism, but also Iron Man being framed for murder and one of his greatest enemies trying to destroy him would make for a pretty great animated movie. With both live action Iron Man movies out and popular, I feel like the Demon in a Bottle storyline would really go over well with audiences and people would love it.
3. Ultimate X-Men: I just think that with the decent success of Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate X-Men should be a no brainer. The X-Men are not only popular, but so many people identify with them. Not to mention, Ultimate X-Men was one of Marvel's top selling books.
4. Thor Vol. 1-3: For me, J. Michael Stracyzinski's work on Thor is probably my favorite Marvel comic storylines. It lead to Siege and just reinvigorated the character. It kept the basic foundation of Thor, but rebuilt him in a bolder vision. Yes, he's still the god of thunder and yes, he still seeks to protect Earth, but his new responsiblities with possessing the Odin power and being the only source of salvation for Asgard and its people just casts Thor in such a humanizing light. Yes, there are a lot of epic battles in the story which would create great action in an animated movie, but this is one of the few Thor stories where I could actually identify with Thor and saw him as more of a human.
5. Lastly, and unfortunately I don't know the name of the storyline, but it's the X-Men storyline from the 90's where Magneto wages his war against humanity and forces Xavier and his X-Men to retaliate. In the process, the X-Men go to Magneto's asteroid to bring the fight to him and Magneto rips the Adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton. This, for me anyway, was probably the most powerful X-Men story I've read. The story was well paced, the action jumped off the page, and the emotionality of the story struck right to the heart. This would translate well into an animated movie. It would give all the X-Men a chance to shine and really show the world what they're made of.
Those are my top 5 choices. I left Civil War and Death of Captain America out of the list because, while they are good stories, I feel like they were too big and probably wouldn't be done properly.
Those are my choices. What are yours? Comment in the usual place.