One of the many complaints I hear people say on this site is that some CBMs are not especially faithful to the source material, Im here to tell you why that’s an idiotic complaint.
Faithfulness to the source material is a complaint I hear often from comic book fans. Many of them complain that CBMs in particular fail to capture the magic of the classics or are just changing things for no good reason. Now this is true in some cases and on that I do agree. But, comic books by their very nature are about establishing a character, and as the years go by, experience different takes and/or version of that character. Some are good, some are bad but mostly it’s all just based on opinion and personnel preference.
This way of writing is what has allowed comic book characters to remain fresh and to evolve as the years have gone by. It has also allowed for some truly spectacular stories to be done with characters like Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Thor, Justice League, Avengers and so on.
However I have to ask why is it so hard to accept this for comic book based movies?
The way I see CBMs is that they are alternate universes from the comic books, hell the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been officially designated in the Marvel Multiverse as Earth-199999, so it technically exists in the comics as well. But what I don’t understand is why is it so hard for many so called fans to accept it when CBMs and the creative teams behind them do their take on a character when they can (usually) accept it in comic books?
For example let’s take the Fox version of X-Men, it’s still the same characters you know from the comics, it’s just the Bryan Singer take on them and it’s an alternate universe so why can’t you just accept that certain things are different? So they don’t have the colorful, flashy costumes from the comics and have black suits, so?
Just because those bright, flashy costumes can work in comic books does NOT mean they can work in live action. Wolverine’s costume, in my opinion, would look stupid as hell in live action. They tried to do Captain Americas default suit in the comics and I burst out laughing because I couldn’t believe that anyone in their right mind would wear that, let alone want a guy who dresses like that to be your team leader. But in the comic books I can accept this.
Do you guys really want to see a midget in yellow spandex, with a big black spiky mask, blue shoes, gloves with metal claws sticking out of his hands, a cigar in his mouth and a bad attitude who says bub all the time? I don’t, it would look absolutely horrible, and does that mean we can’t have the X-Force costume as the default one? Of course not, does it mean we HAVE to have it? Not really.
But where this really bothers me is with Spider-Man, people often complain about the new version of the character in the Webbverse. Now I know people are already typing Z0GM U LI3K AN DRU GARPHAIL?!?!? U R T3H SPUPIDAST P3RS0N 3VAR ADN U N33D 2 KILL UR S3LF LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Well like I said, this is just my [frick]ing opinion and im not passing it off as fact. That’s the point of a goddamn editorial, a person’s opinion on something, you don’t like it? Then leave and read something else, no ones forcing you to be here but I digress.
People often say they want a 100% faithful adaptation of Spider-Man, heres the problem with that, which take do you want to be done 100% faithfully? Do you want the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man? The JMS version? The original Stan Lee version? The Dan Slott version? See heres where this whole complaint makes no sense, every character has hundreds if not thousands of different takes and versions. Just classifying all of the runs from writers I listed above as 616 Spider-Man does NOT work. While they follow the principles setup by Stan Lee in the early days, all of them are different and have their own voice and take on the character.
So it’s impossible to try and be faithful to all of these different takes in one series, hell you can make a million Spider-Man reboots and base them off of every different run on the character. Ultimate Spider-Man is a bit different, it’s been mostly written by one guy for most of its existence and it can be pulled off 100% faithfully, 616 Spidey can not because of all the different runs and versions of the character.
And this is what I don’t get, every CBM is like a new writer coming on to a character and doing his AU or take on that character. The best ones manage to find their own voice for that character while drawing inspiration from other runs and adding them into to enhance their own, why is this so hard for people to accept for CBMs?
You want a 100% faithful to the classics Spider-Man movie? Alright then, that means its going to be a 60s period piece where everyone sounds the same because it’s the Silver age and everyone is an archetype, there are no real characters and every piece of dialogue will be lifted straight from the comic.
I would love it if some one actually did this just too see how well it would be done just so I can see it crash, burn and kill off this idiotic complaint along with it. On a side note, if you don’t like what a company is doing to a hero on the big screen and you dislike it that’s fine. But then don’t go around passing off your opinion as a fact, an opinion is not a fact, you know what is? 2+2=4, that is an undisputable fact of life, an opinion is NOT!
Hell even this editorial is not a fact, this is just me voicing my opinion on this IT R NT0 FAITH FULL 2 DA C0MICZ complaint I keep seeing everywhere and me voicing my frustration with the whole thing. If you agree with me that’s fine, if you don’t that’s fine too, in both cases convey your opinion in a proper manner instead of coming off as an asshole and attacking others for thinking differently than you. Because you are the center of the whole [frick]ing universe and everyone who does not follow the same beliefs as you is sub human (sarcasm).