The Specialists

The last ten years or so have been a renaissance for comic book movies. Not only have Marvel and DC had blockbusters based on their characters, but even the independents have seen successful big- and small-screen adaptations, such as the Hellboy movies, Kick-Ass, the Walking Dead TV series, and others. Even non-superhero comics, like Ghost World, A History of Violence, and Road to Perdition have been adapted.

When you think about it, that’s kind of amazing. The problem with comic book adaptations is that things that seem perfectly at home on the page don’t always work so well on the screen. Filmmakers are forced to choose which elements will make the transition between mediums, and which won’t. They also have to satisfy both the fan community and the movie-going public at large. That’s no easy task. Fans want the utmost respect for the source material, which means minimum deviations. But the average person looking for a weekend distraction just wants a cohesive and entertaining story. The simple truth is that there’s no good way to condense decades of back-story and minutia into a two-hour movie and make everyone happy. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…