In the effort of being honest, I have an admission to make. One that will make the words that follow seem like sour grapes.

I “applied” to work at Cracked.com.

Applied in the sense that I signed up for their developmental workshop message boards, where writers can pitch stories that might one day make the website and get them paid. I haven’t submitted anything yet (and probably won’t after this) because I was trying to come up with the perfect pitch. One that was factually correct, stood up on its own, and made its argument forcefully yet logically.

JF Sargent. No, really.

As it turns out, that wasn’t really necessary. JF Sargent, who just happens to the be the moderator of that above workshop, posted an article on the site last week called, “5 Reasons Superhero Movies Are a Bubble That Will Soon Burst.” In it, he compares the popularity of comic book films to the “New Hollywood” era of film making, the period from 1967 to about 1982 where young filmmakers made a big splash and changed the face of cinema. The five “reasons” are five similarities Sargent thinks he sees between the two eras. His theory is because the “New Hollywood” era of film making flamed out, surely the superhero film era is also on its way there.

On the surface, it seems like it has the makings of a well researched piece of film criticism, one so logically sound that it can not be questioned. I mean, if Sargent proves that  one era hit the same number of landmarks in  the exact same way as another era did, why, certainly if first era dies, the other one will die in the same way, right?

Well, it might, if Sargent hadn’t made any glaring factual errors, fudged facts and history, and used subjective logic and “proof” all along the way. There are so many glitches  that his arguments go from sounding the definitive death knell for the comic book film to being what appears to be a sad bit of “wishful thinking” journalism.

How many? Well, let’s make a list of our own by going through his text. And we don’t have to wait long. It starts with the lead paragraph:

If you’re a lover of comic books, fantasy novels, or sci-fi, you should be in heaven right now. All of Hollywood caters to your tastes. Hell, if you’re under 20 years old, you don’t even remember what it’s like not to have Hollywood throw $2 billion worth of blockbuster movies at you every summer (while the rest of us remember that as recently as 1994 they made a Fantastic Four movie so bad, it couldn’t even be released).

1. The poor quality of the Fantastic Four film played little to no role in the project being shelved.

I explained as much here, but let me give you the pertinent graph:

There are two schools of thought over why the film was not released. One was that Constantin never intended to release the film at all, and essentially lied to all parties involved in the production just so the film could be made. Another says that Avi Arad, who would become head of Marvel Studios two years after the film was due to be released and helped usher in the success Marvel has had in recent years, paid Constantin and Concorde to shelve the movie because he didn’t want such a cheap production to taint the brand. Regardless, the film was never released either here or abroad, and only exists in a popular bootleg version you can find at most comic book conventions.

Granted, the film was shot for $1 million dollars, a sum way under what it would take to make a good FF film. It was cheap and it looked it. But the main factors at play seem to be the ones mentioned above. And Arad’s reason for putting the film on ice, as described on the very Wikipedia page Sargent linked to, seems less about how bad it was, but how little money was spent on it.

This might be splitting hairs, but it goes to establishing Sargent’s bona fides. The fact that he just casually mentions that the ’94 FF film was shelved was because it was awful, without even presenting an existing opposing point of view, shows a tendency to present only the “facts” that support his argument. Not a good start.

And while we’re here:

2. Sargent uses Wikipedia as a source. A lot.

Not long ago I was in college. I wrote a lot of papers. Wikipedia was strongly frowned upon as a source of information. Why? Because it is crowd-sourced. Anybody can edit an article there,and you can have it say whatever you want. Therefore, it’s not always very trustworthy to back up your arguments. Granted, some of Wikipedia”s articles are sourced, but in that case its better to use the original source.

Sargent’s list begins in earnest by stating both eras began with a surprise box office hit out of the blue. For “New Hollywood,” it was 1967′s Bonnie and Clyde. For the comic book era? It was a bunch of films that came out in the early 2000′s that overcame the superhero film-light 1990s. Let me let him tell you:

This changed in 2000 and 2001 when X-Men, Spider-Man, and the first The Lord of the Rings came out. Remember that back then those geek-centric movies were all pretty risky investments for the studios. Not only was this the first time that either of those Marvel superheroes would be seen on screen, but the last superhero movie to come out at that time had been Batman & Robin, which, you know, we’d rather not talk about. As for The Lord of the Rings, the last attempt at an adaptation was a godawful cartoon that was made in the 1980s.

3. Spider-Man came out on May 3, 2002.

Before you call me a nitpicker, here me out. The reason I make an issue out of this is because it is key to Sargent’s comparison that each era begin with a “big bang” if you will–one or more films that were a surprise success. Now, since the “New Hollywood” era is traced back to just one film, it suits Sargent’s argument better if the three “superhero” films came out in quick succession. But they didn’t. It took three years for all the films mentioned to come out.  And really, there were only two that are legit, and they came out two years apart. More on that later. But Spider-Man definitely came out in 2002, even Wikipedia got that right.

4. What about Blade?

If Sargent was looking for a comic book film that fit his analogy to a T, Blade is it. It was the first film where Marvel took a more active role in the production of the film, marking a new attention towards fidelity to the source material that Sargent marks as a trademark of the superhero film era. It was also an unknown property without a huge built in audience, so it was not a lock that it would be a success. But it was, it debuted at #1 at the box office just like Sargent’s other examples and made a sizable profit. If there was a film that ushered in the era of the superhero movie, it was Blade.

Why didn’t Sargent use Blade as the start of the superhero movie era? Perhaps he just didn’t know that Blade was a superhero. Or, maybe, for his point to work, for the narrative he was trying to create to gel, he had to create some distance the “last” comic book film, Batman and Robin, and the comic book film’s resurgence. Blade wouldn’t work here because it was released in 1998 and Batman and Robin was released in 1997. That would have meant the superhero film bounced back just 14 months after it’s nadir. And that weakens Sargent’s point almost completely.

Some of you might argue that Blade is not a superhero. He’s a vampire who fights vampires with his vampire powers. That is totally different than a superhero who fights supervillains with superpowers! Okay, but what about…

5. Frodo Baggins, Superhero!?!!?

Listen, determining who is and who isn’t a superhero is a popular topic of debate in comic shops across the country. Is the Punisher a superhero? Someone will that because he wears a costume, yes. Others will say that he doesn’t have any powers, so no. Then someone will bring up Batman, who wears a costume but has no powers, is he a superhero? Someone will say yes because he fights super-powered villains. But, the Punisher fought super-powered villains…well, you get the idea. If your loved one goes to their local comic shop and doesn’t come back for hours, it’s probably because they got sucked into one of these kinds of conversations.

But if you were to go into that shop and say that your favorite superhero was good ol’ Frodo, all sides of the argument would stop fighting amongst themselves,unite, and start arguing against you.

I mean, granted, Frodo has a ring that makes him invisible, and he hangs out with wizards, but he resides in the fantasy/sword and sorcery genre, not the superhero genre. And while fans of one genre often are fans of the other, the genres are not interchangeable. It would be a huge stretch of logic to consider them so.

But Sargent needs big films and big franchises to provide the tools to work with. So, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars become superhero movies, even though they really aren’t. For the casual reader, this probably won’t matter much. But to fans of the superhero film, the inclusion of these films invalidates Sargent’s argument from the get go. Because he’s not railing against the superhero film, he’s really railing against a larger target–the geek culture film. But I guess that wouldn’t generate as many hits.

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, The Mask, and Men in Black all came out in the 1990s.

Sargent likes to paint the 1990s as such:

In the ’90s, all of the major money-maker movies were Die Hard knockoffs (Con Air, Broken Arrow, Face/Off), sober explorations of tragedies (Dances With Wolves, Schindler’s List, Titanic), Adam Sandler being a dumbass, and Tom Hanks doing things that usually didn’t involve having superpowers.

First off, not including Speed in the list of Die-Hard knockoffs is a crime. It was Die Hard on a frikkin bus for goodness sakes!

Second, Sargent intends to show that the 90s were a dry period for the superhero movie. But they really weren’t. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, The Mask, and Men in Black all could be considered superhero films (if Frodo’s a superhero, then so is Agent J). They all came from comic books. All their lead characters fought crime in different ways. And all of them were box office hits in the comic book film unfriendly 1990s. Each one had at least one sequel, which is more than you can say for Sargent’s examples. And, lest we for get, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and, yes, Batman and Robin all were released in the 90s and all made a profit (yes, even Batman and Robin, when worldwide grosses are added in).

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll talk about three “superhero” films that offer a bit of metacommentary on comic books and the real world.

After The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan could do no wrong. That film was a surprise success, and its twist ending had many people comparing Shyamalan to Alfred Hitchcock in the kindest of terms. All of Hollywood was looking to do business with the director, and they were willing to let him do whatever he wanted.

Fortunately, Shyamalan had written a spec script during post-production of that film, a script that Touchstone Pictures bought for a record-setting $5 million (the most paid to that point for a spec script). Audiences and critics eagerly awaited this new Shyamalan film, expecting it to be a psychological thriller along the lines of The Sixth Sense. What they got was something entirely different.

Unbreakable wasn’t just a superhero movie, but rather a deconstruction of the superhero mythos. It went one step beyond transporting the Superman archetype to a more realistic setting by becoming a quasi-psychological examination of comic book tropes and trademarks.

The film focuses on David Dunn (Bruce Willis), an unemployed security guard who survives a horrific train wreck, one which killed all of the other 131 passengers on the train. Soon after, he is contacted by Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a comic book fan who believes Dunn is a superhuman come to life. Price leads Dunn down a path of self-discovery, which results in a sinister revelation at the end of the film.

The comic book tropes are all over the film, starting with the protagonist’s alliterative name. David Dunn calls to mind a long line of comic book character’s alter egos (Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, etc). Much like Superman with Kryptonite and Green Lantern with the color yellow, Dunn finds a weakness that strips him of his powers (It just happens to be water. GL is the butt of many jokes by being able to be neutralized by a banana peel, imagine a superhero who was useless when it rains. Shyamalan reused the weakness for the aliens in Signs, which was even sillier. Why try to conquer a planet that is two-thirds covered in the stuff that can kill you? But I digress…). And Dunn’s arch-enemy is his polar opposite—like Batman, bastion of order, having to tangle with the anarchic Joker, or the physically powerful alien Superman having to constantly fight the intellectually gifted, albeit completely human, Lex Luthor, the indestructible Dunn must contend with a man with a rare bone disease that makes his bones incredibly fragile.

Unbreakable did well at the box office, but disappointing in comparison to The Sixth Sense. This can be chalked up to the ad campaign for the film, which tried to portray it as a psychological thriller in the mold of Shyamalan’s first film.

As it stands, Unbreakable is an example of the way that the world of comics have influenced filmmakers. Two years later, we would see a comic book creator become a filmmaker.

James Robinson, like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman before him, was a British writer who made a big splash in America by reimagining a long-standing DC Comics character. Moore’s character, as we already mentioned, was Swamp Thing. Gaiman’s was the Sandman. Robinson made his name revamping Starman. Starman, like Sandman, was a character first created in the Golden Age of Comics (in 1941 to be exact) who was revamped and refigured into a number of different versions before finally hitting the right one. Robinson’s Starman was the son of the original, a reluctant hero who wrestled with family baggage as often as he did with the bad guys.

Calling Starman one of the best comic books to come out of the 1990s is the textbook definition of a backhanded compliment. The decade was known as a pit of bloated excess, marketing gimmicks and quantity over quality. However, Starman was one of the few comic books to come out of that era that truly deserved to be called great.

The comic book series ended in 2001 and Robinson moved on to Hollywood. In 2002, he wrote and directed Comic Book Villains, a film that spent about 15 seconds in theaters if that long. It wasn’t a superhero film at all, but comic books provided the MacGuffin that propelled the film’s crime noir plot along. The film centered on a collection of valuable comics dating all the way back to the Golden Age. The collector died and two rival comic book stores vie to get the expensive books by any means necessary. Unfortunately, the collector’s mom refuses to sell. As the owners of each store try to change the woman’s mind, their competition for the books soon turns nasty…and quite deadly.

Robinson’s script presented the story with dollops of black comedy and heaping helpings of the dark side of human nature.  His cast might not have been A-list, but it was beyond great. Character actors such as Donal Logue, D.J. Qualls, Eileen Brennan and Cary Elwes fill in the leads and make their characters at once likeable and detestable. It’s well worth a look if you come across it on Netflix or if you have room on an Amazon gift card.

The final film we are going to talk about today takes the idea of applying realism to the superhero tropes to a new level, employing a popular style of filmmaking.

The “found footage” genre exploded in popularity in 1999 with the release of The Blair Witch Project, the film that became the trademark of the genre. That movie introduced the conceit that what you were seeing on screen was real, culled from footage filmed by the characters in the film, typically found after something awful happened to them. This conceit usually appears in horror films, where the pseudo-realism adds a creepy sense of dread to the scares. However, it was applied to the superhero genre with 2012’s Chronicle.

In this case, the found footage was taken by the three teens who gained telekinetic powers after coming in contact with a strange, radioactive rock. It chronicled their exploits in using their powers, which typically involved playing cruel tricks on unsuspecting townsfolk. It also documented the corrupting influence these newfound powers had on one of their members as he spiraled out of control into pure evil.

This was deconstructing the idea of superpowers for the YouTube generation. It tapped into the fact that if kids nowadays gained superpowers, they would not immediately go out and track down bank robbers. They’d get their laughs by scaring little girls in toy stores by making the stuffed animals appear to come to life. And they’d record it, not because their powers are amazing, but rather because they were recording their life any way and their origin just happened. Even without the “found footage” conceit, it would have been a realistic portrayal. The conceit just added another layer of realism.

Next up, we’ll look at some kid friendly films that examine the superhero, including one of the best superhero films of all time (and one of the worst).

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll look at the comic book film that failed upward—The Rocketeer—and the comic artist that created the original source material—Dave Stevens.

Some comic book creators are incredibly prolific with the amount of characters they create, say, like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Others are primarily known more for their artistry than the characters they create, like George Pérez. But in Dave Stevens’ case, he was known for his artistry and the one character he created.  That character is the Rocketeer.

Stevens got his start in the mid-1970s as an assistant to the legendary Russ Manning while Manning was doing the art for the Tarzan and Star Wars comics strips.  He then went on to work for Hanna Barbera under the tutelage of Jonny Quest creator Doug Wildey and also worked some as a storyboard artist.

At the 1981 San Diego Comic Con, Pacific Comics owners, the Schanes brothers, came to Stevens for help because they knew he was an artist. They needed two, six-page stories to act as filler in issues #2 & #3 for Mike Grell’s creator-owned book, Starslayer.  Stevens bounced around some ideas and came up with one that he could do on the fly.

Even though the Rocketeer was thrown together on the spot, it didn’t mean that it was amateurish or awful. On the contrary, it is one of the best works to come out of comic books in the 1980s.

The series was a bouillabaisse of Stevens’ likes and influence. He used himself as a model for the hero, Cliff Secord. His mentor Wildey became the model for Secord’s mentor, Peevy. Stevens’ muse Bettie Page became the model for Cliff’s girlfriend, Betty. Nods to everything from Doc Savage (Doc’s assistants Ham and Monk appear anonymously in the first Rocketeer installment), The Shadow (who helps Cliff in the second), Rondo Hatton (who is the basis for the villain of the second installment), the film Freaks, the aviation trend of the depression era, film serials, the kitchy architecture of pre-war Los Angeles and the glamour of 1930s Hollywood and New York City.

Stevens gets the reputation of being a “good girl” artist for his skill at drawing gorgeous women in seductive poses, but his artistry goes way beyond that. Certainly, his art was beautiful when he was illustrating buxom babes, but it was just as beautiful when he was drawing an airplane, a supper club, or the folds on a dinner jacket. His art was lush and detailed and seemed to have a glow all of its own.

And his writing was also ahead of its time. Cliff Secord could have been a precursor to the “anti-hero” trend that Alan Moore and Frank Miller would exploit several years later. Secord was stubborn and self-centered. He was jealous and had a quick temper. He wasn’t the prototypical superhero, all virtuous and noble. He was human, like us.

The Rocketeer saga was presented in two installments in eight separate issues of four different series (Starslayer, Pacific Presents, The Rocketeer Special Edition, and The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine) from four different publishers (Pacific, Eclipse, Comico, and Dark Horse) over the span of 13 years (1982-1995). The protracted publishing schedule was due mainly to the fact that two of the four comic companies went out of business while he was working with them, his own meticulous drawing speed, and various legal entanglements (for instance, the rights for The Rocketeer were mistakenly listed as an asset of Comico when they went bankrupt, so Stevens had to wait six years after issue #2 of The Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, which was published by Comico in 1989, before he could publish the final issue of the series at Dark Horse in 1995 after the new holder of Comico’s rights itself went out of business as to avoid a legal battle over the disputed rights.)

In 1991, before the final issue of the series was published, The Rocketeer was released in theaters.

The Rocketeer really has no business being on the list of the best comic book adaptations ever made. The film was first optioned in 1983 by Steve Miner in an aborted attempt to bring it to the screen, but differences in the direction the film property should go caused the film rights to revert back to Stevens. The artist found a more comparable match with Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who were on the same page as Stevens as to subject matter and setting of the film.

The film originally landed at the Walt Disney shingle, Touchstone Pictures and had a tone similar to the original comic book story. However, Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, knowing that the kid-friendly Disney studios needed a live-action hit and seeing the potential in the film as a toy generating property, moved the film over to the main studio. As a result, nude model Bettie Page became aspiring starlet Jenny Blake, and Cliff Secord went from being an irascible rogue to an all-American kid with just a hint of the rebel in him.

Usually, when this big of a change is made in the translation to the screen, the film suffers. But while the concept was lightened to make it more family-friendly, it still kept the spirit of the original comic alive. It helped that Dave Stevens kept a hands-on role all through production. He provided his clip files to production designers to properly capture the look of the time. Stevens has a cameo as the German test pilot for their version of the rocket pack.

The film was a tribute to depression-era Los Angeles and a love-letter to the culture of the barnstorming pilot. It still paid homage to the age of the film serial, but added nods to the B-movie gangster, espionage and crime genres.   And as much attention as Stevens’ paid to the look, the architecture and the illustration style of the era, director Joe Johnson paid as much attention to the visual style of the films of the 30s.

Some plot points still made the translation over from the book to the film. The origin is still pretty much the same as the book, as is Secord’s first appearance as the Rocketeer (although he is rescuing a pilot in the film who has lost control of his plane, not a pilot who has passed out behind the yoke because he was drunk, as in the book. Thank you Disney!). The Rondo Hatton look-a-like Lothar, the main villain from Stevens’ second arc, is in the film, but as a henchman for the main villain, Neville Sinclair, a new addition as “the number three box office star in America” who is a Nazi spy.  Yes, the Nazis are still after the rocket in the film, but in a less straightforward way than in the book. They try to get the rocket through Sinclair who tries to get it through some local gangsters.

While the film does not follow the book exactly, if you buy into the goofy homage to the entertainment of the past, the film becomes an entertaining ride. I still cheer at the jingoistic way the mobsters, who were trying to kill Secord and the feds throughout the whole movie, switch allegiances to fight the Nazis at the end.

The film is as good as it is due to two actors in particular, and not the ones who would later go on to win Oscars either. Alan Arkin, who would win Best Supporting Actor in 2007 for Little Miss Sunshine, is miscast in the role of Peevy. Arkin is too laid back in the role of the grumpy genius from the comic. And, although this might not be his fault, he is cursed with one of the worse hairpieces ever to appear on recorded film. I kept expecting birds to use it as a nest.

Jennifer Connolly, who would win Best Supporting Actress for A Beautiful Mind in 2002, was still relatively early in her film career. She had not at that point gained the acting chops that would later win her the Oscar. You get the feeling that Jenny was written as a glamorous yet down to earth girl with a lot of moxie. Connolly played her as a glamorous yet down to earth girl with very little moxie to her.

However, Billy Campbell and Timothy Dalton are what make this movie great. Campbell looks almost exactly like the comic book Cliff Secord, and the relative newcomer brought a Jimmy Stewart-like charisma to the role. And Dalton, who was just coming off a stint of playing James Bond, excels as the Errol Flynn-inspired Neville Sinclair. He puts so much life into the villain that it becomes a truly complex character. Dalton’s Sinclair is charming one minute, dangerous the next, and funny the minute after that, with just the right amount of scenery chewing thrown in for good measure.

The film was originally planned to be the first in a trilogy, but when the $35-40 million dollar film only made $46+ million at the box office, that plan was scrapped. Although it wasn’t a financial success, it was a charming film. And while it wasn’t 100% faithful to the comic book, it showed a comic book movie is best when they capture the spirit of the original source material.

While many, including myself, think this version is pretty much close to perfect, there are people in Hollywood who still think “pretty close” isn’t close enough. As we reported here, rumor has it that Disney is are thinking of remaking the film. Personally, I hope the make a more adult version of the property, more in line with Stevens’ excellent original comic book.

Next, we cover another great comic book adaptation whose behind-the-scenes tragedy raises it above your standard comic book film.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll look at the comic that was created using tax refunds and became a multi-million dollar international phenomenon—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the story of America. It is the story of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. It is the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. It is the story that reality shows like American Idol and The Voice try to manufacture each and every season. It is the story of an underdog meeting up with fate and opportunity and taking advantage of both to find unimaginable success. It is the story of the American Dream.

It all starts in Dover, New Hampshire, early 1980s. Kevin Eastman, a comic book fan, draws a picture of a turtle wearing a mask to make his friend and fellow comic book fan, Peter Laird, laugh. The gag photo started a conversation and then an exchange of ideas. Before long, they were pooling their income tax refunds, borrowing some money from Eastman’s uncle, and printing up 3,000 copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 as Mirage Studios (the mirage being that they were the only two at their “studios”).

The influences that Eastman and Laid drew on were there from the first issue. The cover design is reminiscent of the design of Frank Miller’s Ronin miniseries. The origin and history of the Turtles ties into the Daredevil mythos, primarily Frank Miller’s addition to it (the Turtles are mutated by the same canister of radioactive waste that blinds Matt Murdock and gives him radar sense, their trainer is Splinter instead of Daredevil’s trainer, Stick, and the faceoff against the Foot clan of ninjas, a reference to DD’s ninja enemies, the Hand). The age of the heroes is a play on the popular “teen heroes” trend of the era, as exemplified by The New Teen Titans and The New Mutants. And, surely, the idea of doing an anthropomorphic, creator-owned, parody of various comic book genres and tropes was inspired by Dave Sim’s Cerebus. Even the names of the Turtles—Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael—were a jab at the artistic movement in comics of the day.

Even with a miniscule 3,000 copy print run (even the lowest selling comics had print runs in the tens of thousands), Laird and Eastman believed that they’d have copies left over. Two things worked in their favor—one, Laird, from his experience working at a newspaper knew of a thing called a press kit. He created one for TMNT and sent it out to major media outlets and, two, the comic industry was on the verge of a black and white comic boom, so interest in black and white indies, which TMNT was, was at an all time high.

The first printing sold out (and it got to the point that counterfeit copies were made). Then the second printing sold out. Then a third printing sold out as well. Eastman and Laird decided to continue the series. The second issue more than tripled its print run. The pair had a success on their hands. They were able to not only pay back their debt but also actually make a living. Their parody began to be parodied—Eclipse Comics’ Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Blackthorne Publishing’s Pre- Teen Dirty-Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos and Cold-Blooded Chameleon Commandos, even Marvel got in the act with a proposal called Adult Thermonuclear Samurai Elephants, which was eventually reworked into a book called Power Pachyderms.

Licensors then started calling. First came a long-running animated TV show. Next came a very successful line of action figures. And then came the movies.

The first film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arrived in 1990.

The Turtle masks were made by  Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (One of the last works Henson supervised before he passed away. The sequel to this film is dedicated to him.) and were a step above what was seen four years earlier with Howard the Duck. The tone of the film was somewhere between the darker tone of the first Eastman and Laird comic and the kid-friendly cartoons that were airing on TV concurrently. In the film, New York City is in the midst of a crime wave created by Shredder and his Foot clan of ninjas. The only group strong enough to fight him is a group of mutated terrapins—the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Robbie Rist (Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch) and Corey Feldman would voice  two of the Turtles (Michelangelo and Donatello respectively). Their rat mentor, Splinter, was voiced by Kevin Clash, the puppeteer that helped make Elmo the star of Sesame Street. Sam Rockwell had a small role as a thug in the film, one of his first film roles.

The film was a smash success, making over $200 million against a $13.5 million dollar budget. This pretty much guaranteed a sequel, which was 1991’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

The sequel came out at the height of the Turtles popularity, and suffered for it. The violence was toned down and the Turtles’ distinctive weapons were minimized. There was an eye towards merchandising as well, including an awkward cameo by the then-briefly popular Vanilla Ice, who sang “Ninja Rap” (“Go Ninja, Go Ninja, GO!”) during a fight scene at a club. The song was quickly released as a single to tie in to the popularity of both Vanilla Ice and the Turtles. This single became the first nail in the coffin of Ice’s career.

What about the plot? Well, Shredder figures out what caused the Turtles to mutate and uses it to mutate two bestial enemies for the Turtles before using it on himself to become “Super Shredder.”

The film cost more to produce than the first film ($25 million) and made less ($78 million), but was enough of a hit to garner another sequel—1993’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time.

The film transported the Turtles back to feudal Japan, where they have to save a Japanese village from a British arms dealer.  The film doubled its production budget back, but would prove to be the last Turtles film for 14 years, until 2007’s TMNT.

This was an attempt to create a new sequel to the film franchise using the current trend for computer generated animation. CGI suited the Turtles, making them fit into their surroundings just a bit better. The film focuses on the Turtles, who have drifted apart over the years since the last film. They have to reunite to prevent the world from being conquered.

What about Eastman and Laird? Well, they drifted apart, too. Eastman moved to California, Laird to Massachusetts. Both became involved in creator rights in different ways. Eastman started up Tundra, a creator-friendly company that published Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell (which we’ll talk about later), James O’Barr’s The Crow (which we’ll talk about later), and Mike Allred’s Madman (which I wish we were talking about later) and would buy Heavy Metal magazine (which we talked about already). Laird created the Xeric Foundation in 1992, established to give money to organizations that promote literacy and grants to talented creators to help fund their comics.

In 2000, Laird bought out most of Eastman’s right to the Turtles, with the whole of Eastman’s rights being bought in 2008. Laird remained involved with the Turtles until he was involved in a deal with Nickelodeon for the characters, a deal worth $60 million dollars, finalized in 2009. Part of the deal was that Laird would still be able to create up to 18 TMNT comics a year, Eastman still owns Heavy Metal, and was married to former Penthouse Pet of the Year and B-Movie Queen Julie Strain. Last year, Eastman was involved in the Turtles reboot from IDW as well.

Eastman is also supposed to be involved with Michael Bay’s controversial TMNT revamp, Ninja Turtles. The project garnered a fair bit of controversy  last year when Bay admitted making some major changes to the concept, including making the turtles older and turning them into aliens. Eastman’s involvement has seemed to alieviate many longtime fans’ fears, but the new take might bring some new fans to the franchise.

So, there you go, the American success story. A joke amongst friends turns into an indelible piece of international pop culture. Cowabunga, dude.

Next, we begin a string of great, if somewhat underrated, comic book film adaptations.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, the comic book muck monsters, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, hit the big screen two decades apart.

While Man-Thing, who made his debut in Marvel Comics’ Savage Tales #1, cover dated May 1971, came before Swamp Thing, who debuted in DC Comics’ House of Secrets #92 cover dated July 1971, in the comics, the latter would beat the former to movie screens by more than twenty years, and even then Man-Thing would only be released internationally.

The comic book origins of the two are remarkably similar. Both were working on secret formulas in laboratories located in swamps.  Both are attacked by foes looking to gain the formula for themselves. Both are exposed to the chemicals, become grievously injured, and end up coming to rest in the swamp where the formula and mystical forces work to combine the men’s bodies with plant matter, creating a new lifeform.

Due to the close proximity of release dates of their first appearances, it would be easy to write of the similarities as coincidence. However, Swamp Thing’s co-creator, Len Wein, was roommates with Man-Thing’s co-creator, Gerry Conway. Wein even wrote the second Man-Thing story that would have been in Savage Tales #2 if the series wasn’t cancelled.

Whether it was subliminal influence or direct copying, it didn’t matter. Both characters bore more than a passing similarity to a Golden Age character called The Heap (which debuted in 1942) and each character went off into quite different directions after they first appeared—Swamp Thing becoming a sentient being searching for revenge and a cure for his condition, Man-Thing becoming an essentially mindless force of nature wreaking havoc on all evil men who crossed its path.

Swamp Thing had more success in the comic book world, starring in a number of well-received series over the years. The first, written by Wein and drawn by co-creator Bernie Wrightson for the first ten issues, established the revenge/looking for a cure with a horror tinge to it. That series ended in 1976, but it certainly was fresh in the minds of Hollywood filmmakers, who decided to make a film of it in the early 1980s. 

The film, Swamp Thing, was written and directed by horror master Wes Craven, who was then known for The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left and was two years away from creating another of his seminal works, Nightmare on Elm Street.

The film was a campy action film, lacking much of the horror elements that Craven and the comic book were known for. However, the film was responsible for DC starting up a new Swamp Thing series to capitalize on the film (the series’ first annual adapted the film).This series would be one that would change the landscape of American comics forever.

With the twentieth issue of this second series, a new writer was brought in to take over for series originator Martin Pasko. This writer was British, known primarily for his work on Marvel UK’s Captain Britain series but almost completely otherwise unknown here in the States. The writer’s name was Alan Moore, and he would revolutionize comics in many ways.

Moore is credited with introducing the “grim and gritty” trend in comics, which isn’t truly fair because Pasko’s work on the title was just as grim and just as gritty as Moore’s. But what Moore did was change the way writers (and, by extension, readers) looked at comic book stories. He deconstructed the character of Swamp Thing, revitalized him, and set the bar for every other creator working in comics. He made Swamp Thing a buzz book and made himself into a superstar.

If Moore wasn’t placed on Swamp Thing and given the freedom to do what he saw fit, we probably wouldn’t have had great stories such as Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Watchmen. If his writing wasn’t a success, the door wouldn’t have been opened for U.K. writers such as Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison to gain a foothold in the States. And  Vertigo, DC’s imprint for experimentation and literate comic book writing, would never have come into being.

With all the excitement that Moore was bringing to Swamp Thing, it was only natural that talk would turn to a sequel to Craven’s film. And, in true Hollywood fashion, the producers took a look at what was happening in the comics, ignored all of it, and amped the campy nature of the first film into a full blown comedy with 1989’s Return of the Swamp Thing.

The reason why people don’t remember Swamp Thing being as campy as it was is because it seems as somber as Citizen Kane next to Return of the Swamp Thing. The only major element carried over from the comics was the romance between Swampy and Abigail Arcane, who was played by Heather Locklear. However, Abigail was written in the comics as a well-rounded female character while in the film she is written as having all the emotional weight of a helium balloon. And the romance, which was portrayed in comics with the sensitivity and tact of two soul mates finding each other against all odds, was portrayed in the film as more of a kinky exercise where a plant lover would really get off on having sex with a plant.

As bad as Return of the Swamp Thing was, it in itself is like Citizen Kane to 2005’s Man-Thing film.

This film acts as a blip in the otherwise successful run Marvel has been having since 2000. The fact that the film aired on the SyFy Network (then called SciFi) as a SciFi original gives us some indication as to the quality of the film. While the storyline remains somewhat true to the comic book (the origin is changed as is Man-Thing’s alter ego Ted Sallis, who goes from a scientist to a Native American Shaman), the production values are severely lacking. Marvel chose not to give the film a release in the U.S. because they thought the poor quality of the film would derail the momentum the studio was building with its other properties.  It was released internationally, surely giving foreign countries another reason to view America in a negative light.

While the movie might have killed any possibility of any other Man-Thing films ever being made, there is a Swamp Thing remake in development. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (a name that strikes fear and terror in the hearts of comic fans everywhere) is writing the film and director Vincenzo Natali (Splice) has been tapped to direct.

Next up, we go to the jungle and examine the popularity of the “jungle girl” through the trend’s most famous example, Sheena.

1. The Pink Panther 2 (Sony/Columbia, 3,243 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG): True story, my niece rented the first Steve Martin Pink Panther film and was greatly disappointed. The pink animated cat never showed up. I wonder how many other kids had the same thing happen to them.

Yes, the needless remake gets a sequel. This time the Pink Panther diamond is stolen and a group of international detectives is on the case. Bumbling Clouseau also is on the case, and his incompetence supposedly creates hilarity.

If I seem dismissive of this remake franchise, well, I am. I have a lot of respect for Steve Martin as a comedian, but he’s no Peter Sellers. This was a series that really didn’t need to be remade because there would be no way they could capture Sellars’ magic.

2. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Brothers/ New Line, 3,175 Theaters, 129 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Well, this film certainly took its time being released. I remember seeing ads for this early last year. Usually, it taking that long would be a bad sign.

But how could this movie be trouble? It’s based on a popular, Oprah-friendly, albeit non-fiction, book. And the cast? One Oscar Winner, two solid HBO stars, four or five people who have blockbuster hits under their belts, and  at least six actors or actresses who were lead in at least one other movie. This is an all-star ensemble if there ever was one.

But maybe the book, a self-help relationship guide, really doesn’t work as a movie, which seem not to follow the tenents of the book but rather uses the title as a catch all for some generic relationship humor.

3. Push (Summit Entertainment, 2,313 Theaters, 111 Minutes, PG-13): Yes, a comic book movie not based on a comic book. Sure, if you went into a comic book store, you’d find a Push comic, but it’s a tie-in, not the original source material.

And that’s a sure sign of the success of the genre. For you non-fans of the superhero film, it will probaly get much worse before it gets better.

The story is about a group of people with great mental powers who are on the run from the US Government. The Government wants to use them as weapons, they just want to be left alone. If they want their freedom, however, they are going to have to fight for it.

4. Coraline (Focus Features, 2,298 Theaters, 101 Minutes, Rated PG): With all the troubles Watchmen has been having, all the attention has been on Alan Moore. But another British comics bard has been having his fair share of film adaptations made.

Granted, Coraline was a novel from Neil Gaiman, not a comic. But he is one of the best writers to ever come out of comics. And the story is close enough that us comic fans will claim it as out own.

The story focuses on a girl who escaped through a hole in the wall to an alternate dimension. There she finds a carbon copy of her life, only better. However, it doesn’t stay that way for long, and she soon finds herself in great peril.

The movie is done in the stop motion animation style of a la Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. I always thought this type of filmmaking was a perfect match for Gaiman’s writing. I would love to see a Sandman movie done in this style.