I was born in the early 80's(I'm 29). Like most of you, I have been a comic fan almost all my life. The first comic I ever received was an Uncanny Xmen comic my brother bought for my 6th birthday(I still have it,btw). Since then, I have been in love with comics. From Superman, The Xmen, Batman, heck even The Ferret, I have read them and allowed myself to be immersed into their universes.
But even before that,came my discovery of the Comic Book Movie.
The first exposure to cbms was the Reeves Superman movies when I was about 4. I remember watching them with my brother on VHS and then fighting over who was going to be the man of steel when they grew up. Then later seeing Burton's Batman, also with my brother(then fighting over who got to be Batman when they grew up).
There have been many cbms over the years. And as time changes, so do the way these stories are told. From Donner to Singer, Burton to Nolan, comic book movies have become their own art form. Each new writer and director trying to bring golden age heroes to the modern world. Some fail and some succeed. But for the most part I enjoy the ever living hell out of them.
But now, there is a growing trend in these movies that I find disconcerting. The necessity of injecting the real world into my fantasy world. The best example of this is the Nolan Batman films. Now before all the Nolanites find me for an old fashion Tar and Feathering, I really do like his interpretation of Batman. The only downside to it is we would have never seen the more interesting and colorful villains like Killer Croc, Mr.Freeze, Clayface, and Poison Ivy just to name a few. For me, the biggest draw to Bats is that he is a human, fighting against meta humans. True he has the tec to take them down, but at the end of the day he is just a man(oh who am I kidding, he's Batman).
With the critical success of Batman Begins, other movie-makers have followed suit in grounding their films. Ironman director Jon Favreau said(after claiming he read the comics)that we would never see The Mandarin in his IM films because his is a tec based world and the Mandarin's rings are magic(no Jon,they are not). I just hope Shane Black has a different opinion on the matter. Another robotic suited villain I believe, would kill the franchise. Even in Thor, a story about gods and higher dimensions, they had to throw in that line "In my world science and magic are one in the same"(sorry if I miss quoted that). The claim that their magic is just advanced technology.
This is not entirely their fault(directors and studios). I believe we, the general audience have demanded a little too much of these movies. We rant and rave if we deem a movie to campy, or fake looking. We hold these films to such a high standard, I believe, because for most of our lives we have invested so much time and money, and love in the characters.
So, what I'm trying to say here is that maybe we should lighten up a bit. That we don't need to knock a superhero down a peg to have a good story. How many of you out there have been bitten by a radioactive spider. Or been exposed to gamma rays, are from another planet, are a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, etc. These are our fantasies. We live in real world and I see no reason for the two should have to meet.
Maybe we all can, even for a short time, believe a man can fly.
---Bishop "Gopher" Harcourt---
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