Superpowered Entertainment: A Guide Part One

Well, those that know me will have been wondering when this was going to come along. I'm something of a fan of the "Superhero" genre, and comics to film/tv conversions. I could, in fact, easily write a whole other blog about the topic, and maybe I will. However, for now I'll try and get the subject out of the way in one go so it doesn't overtake what this site is intended to be.

To start off, let's get the big boys out of the way. The feature films are easy, and go thusly:

Good: Superman, Superman II, Superman Returns, Batman (Burton/Keaton), Batman Begins, Spiderman, Spiderman II, Sin City, X-Men II, Hellboy, Unbreakable, V for Vendetta

Average: Daredevil, Hulk (Ang Lee version), X-Men, X-Men II, Superman III, Batman Returns.

Fucking Awful: Superman IV, Electra, Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, Supergirl, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Fantastic Four, lots and lots of made for TV movies.

The sharp among you will notice none of the Blade films are listed. That's because they'd have to go in both the first and last categories, and that would upset me.

Anyway, that pretty much covers the major Hollywood end of things for now. I don't see a great deal of point talking about these films at great length, because chances are you've seen them all already. If not, you now have a handy list to refer to. I get a lot of people asking me specifically what I think of Superman Returns, and to make them stop I'll be doing a separate piece on that soon.

What I'm more interested in talking about here is the less travelled end of the comics conversion market, namely television. There's a lot of it about these days, and yes, a lot of it's very poor. There's also some surprisingly watchable stuff that gets hidden away on the kiddies channels more often than not. Anyhow, I'll start with the relative big boys and work down if you don't mind. (Ooh-er, etc)



I still think that basically, Smallville is a really good idea. One of the things that has kept Superman popular and interesting over many years is that there are essentially three characters to work with. Two of them, the flying alien in tights and the bumbling "mild mannered" reporter have been done time and again. The third, Clark Kent, raised by human parents on a farm in Kansas, has never really been done on film or TV before. Lois and Clark had a go, but it was just...cheap...so I try and forget about it (while, I must admit, still watching it most nights on ITV2 over dinner). So Smallville is a worthy concept, and really they've not done all that badly with it. If you've never watched it before it's best to know what to expect, which is Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Imagine how much more entertaining Dawson's would have been if Dawson had ripped Joeys arms out of her sockets and beaten her to death with them? I can't be the only one with that fantasy. The teen angst comes thick and fast in the first four seasons, and the action is rudely interrupted by gooey loft sequences between Clark and the ever alliterate Lana Lang. I tired of this after season one, and for a long time it really threatened to bury the show in my eyes. Add to this tedious teenage mucking about the fact that the majority of episodes are based around a simple "Freak of the Week" plotline, and it's really starting to sound pretty awful. What saves the whole thing though is maybe 2-3 episodes a season where the producers blow the whole budget and let rip on the action. The effect team win awards year after year, and righty so. Not just that, but it seems that when the writers are told they're doing a big action episode they breathe a sigh of relief, dump yet another "where is our relationship going" bore-fest and turn out some pretty tense and exciting television. This matures as you go through the seasons and the most recent, season 5, had some truly memorable moments. Clark leaping hundreds of feet onto a nuclear missile in flight to remove the warhead in the stratosphere, then walking back in the door with a slightly singed shirt springs to mind. In later seasons the producers have also started sprinkling other characters from the DC universe into the show, and usually to good effect. Episodes in the last two seasons introducing Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman have all been pleasingly above average, and Season 6 promises Green Arrow. Of course the character everyone wants to see, and no doubt everyone on the show wants to introduce, is a young Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately while there's still a live feature film franchise telling a different origin story for Batman that's never going to happen. The other major plus point for the show was the decision to introduce Lex Luthor as a permanent fixture from the outset. Rosenbaum's Lex, and John Glover's frankly awesome Lionel Luthor provide 90% of the drama, and 95% of the decent acting. Glover, frankly, is a god. My advice to the uninitiated is to skim through season one to pick up the characters, then make a jump to the start of season 4. Although, that said, Season 3 Epsiodes 8-9 "Shattered" must be viewed. It's a story that's totally out of character for the show, contains almost no moaning at all, and is my example to people of episodic fantasy television at its absolute best.



I mentioned above that the character Aquaman makes an appearance in Smallville. The episode turned out to be one of the highest rated of the season, and prompted Smallville bosses Gough and Millar to produce an Aquaman pilot for their then network The WB. Around the same time The WB went through major structural changes and has come out the other side as a whole new network, CW. To cut a long story short, CW passed on the potential Aquaman series, and since Warners have the character rights that's the end of that. However, the pilot had become available to download from the US download store and probably other, less reputable sources. It's worth a look as it seems to have had some potential. It' been sat at the top of the US iTunes download chart for weeks, so maybe someone will pay some attention to that and it'll get picked up in sweeps after the entire cast and crew of One Tree Hill are savaged by bears.




Next up, MUTANTS. If any set of characters have come in for more abuse from writers over the years than The X-Men, I'm yet to hear about it. They were a fairly well kept secret for years, apart from Iceman twatting about with Spiderman and Firestar and the whole team appearing in a monumentally awful train wreck of an episode of "Spiderman and his Amazing Friends" (see if you can find this, I have it on VHS and it beggars belief). The comic, running quietly since the 60s, was then adopted by the "Generation X" crowd in the early/mid nineties and it all started to go stupid. Since then I could probably find you about 20 different retellings or every character's origin, each of which would flatly contradict the other 19. You get used to it after a while though, so I don't hate X-Men: Evolution as much as some people do. In fact, I don't hate it at all, I rather like it. For the uninitiated, the X-Men were created along with the earth and the heavens by Stan Lee in the 60's. The basic premise is that (not explicitly, but pretty obviously as a result of nuclear weapons testing) children start to be born with powers and abilities beyond those of normal people. Once these people become public knowledge they're generally met with extreme fear and hostility. The whole concept is a rather blatant allegory for the McCarthy communist witch hunts, although Lee would deny that even to this day. Long story short, bald guy opens a school where these kids can come and learn to control their sometimes dangerous powers in the hope of integrating with normal society and promoting tolerance, while elsewhere his former friend gathers others in the belief that the only way to survive is to subjugate the "inferior" human population. Anyhow, X-Men: Evolution reboots this idea in a contemporary setting. As is a necessity for a mainstream animated show, the majority of the characters are represented as highschool students. They train at the "institute" in their spare time, but attend a regular high school on a day to day basis. A lot of people rage about this being a corruption of the concept, but frankly that's dogshit. The original X-Men characters created by Lee were aged 14-15, and this is a good modern treatment of the story. All the important characters are there from the off, or introduced during the first season. The beauty of the X-Men as opposed to say, Smallville, is they have a vast pool of very strong characters with huge back-stories to introduce on a weekly basis without having to make up stupid excuses for why they can do weird things. Anyone who's seen the recent feature films will recognise just about everyone, with minor cosmetic changes to reach out to as much of a teenage audience as possible. Rogue as a goth for instance is different, but not a major betrayal of the spirit of the character. The only exception on this front is "Spyke", who has been completely made up out of thin air. I really don't see why they needed to do this, except to force a "streetwise" African-American kid into the cast, complete with skateboard. Rad. Anyway, if you enjoyed the feature films or are completely new to the X-Men, give this a spin. It's lightweight, as a children's cartoon will always be, but great fun and a treat to see some excellent characters brought to life. There are four full seasons to go at, from the usual sources.

Right, it's much too late and I'm clearly running away with myself on a topic I have a lot to say about. This has now become a 2-parter that I'll finish tomorrow. I'll sandwich something else in between for those who just don't care. On the slate for that are a write up of US series The 4400, my full thoughts on Superman Returns, and a passion piece about the genius of Jason Lee. Part 2 of this gubbins should feature Justice League Unlimited, lots of Batman, and Lou Ferrino, bless.