What Do You Think Gets Lost Going From Comics To Movies?

Something to discuss. I imagine most of you are (or were) fans of comics, probably superhero comics. You might go see films about those characters, and since you're familiar with them and their stories, you might have an idea in your head of what that character is like. So here's what I'm wondering: What movie about a comic book property has come closest to your idea of the character(s)?

This isn't necessarily whether the film was good, or if you liked it. More what you expected versus what you got. Done well, it's easily possible to make a movie you like without nailing the character exactly as you see them.

This came to mind earlier this week when I mentioned it sounded like Man of Steel had too much Jor-El in it for my tastes. Thinking it over some more the last few days, I decided that for me, a Superman movie wouldn't have weird, Silver Age type powers (like Zod's sudden ability to shoot ray beams from his hands in Superman II), and of course, Superman would not kill people. Which left me with the odd conclusion that Superman III might be the closest a film has come to my idea of Superman.

Well, Superman's never been my favorite character, so perhaps that's just a fluke. But none of the Spider-Man movie I've seen (which excludes Amazing) have ever totally clicked. That wasn't always Spidey/Tobey Maguire's fault - Kirsten Dunst's MJ lacked a certain vivacity or playfulness I associate with the character, and Venom's mere presence was always going to torpedo Spider-Man 3 to a certain extent - but the wisecracks weren't there (even if they're terrible, let 'em fly), and he never had the speed I associate with Spider-Man. There was never that sense I got from the comic panels where there'd be after images of him dodging around.

I tried to go down the list, and there are movies that were my introduction to the character (Rocketeer, Hellboy, maybe Blade, The Mask sort of). There are movies with characters where my idea of them was probably vague or amorphous enough that it wasn't going to be hard to match, like Hulk, for example. They could have done Joe Fixit Hulk, and as long as Banner felt hounded and/or his life was ruined, and Joe trounced some poor military guys, I'd have been cool with it. Ghost Rider's another.

The more fleshed out the picture I have in my head is, the less likely they are to land on it. Which makes sense, and there's no reason why they would tailor their films to one guy's tastes. And like I said, it hasn't stopped me from digging some of them. I loved Captain America: The First Avenger, even though I prefer a Cap who doesn't kill (likely a consequence of growing up on Gruenwald Cap). I'm not a complete hardliner about it, especially since the movie was going to take place during WWII (I do hope he shoots a lot less - preferably none - people in the next one).

I liked Iron Man, but movie Tony Stark isn't really like comic Tony Stark. He's too glib, too reckless. I can see comic Stark refusing to hand over his armor to the feds, but I can't see him turning it into a dog and pony show. Downey plays him like a much smarter version of Hawkeye, the guy who gets on everyone's nerves. Stark does it by being the condescending ass, rather than the loudmouth braggart (though he does a fair amount of that, too). I like comic book Hawkeye, though, it sort of figures I'd dig movie Stark, then.

With Batman, it's probably Mask of the Phantasm, but can I even count that (FYI, I haven't seen Dark Knight Rises)? It's like a 3-episode stretch of Batman: The Animated Series (which probably formed a lot of my opinions on how Bats should behave). Among the live action films, Schumaker's are too far into Adam West territory (and also terrible), and the Nolan films are trying too hard for realism, with all the exposition about how he gets his weapons, and the body armor and all. I'm quite content with a Batman wearing no armor and driving an impractically large sports car around town. Also, he'd have the yellow oval symbol. Which means the first Burton film, I guess. To the films' credits, they've largely avoided the Massive Jerk to His Friends Batman we've been saddled with in comics for the last 20 years.

I don't have any specific point I'm trying to make. This was something I started thinking about this week, and I thought I'd try polling the audience for their thoughts.