“Heroes, Villains, and Me” is a weekly article on Geeky KOOL about the world of comic books and my reaction to it. “Heroes, Villains, and Me” is not a comic book review article. I will write about current events, speculation and rumors, or my own wacky thoughts about the world of comic books.
My friend, David, took some time to discuss his love for the movie, The Dark Knight Rises. He used to read comic books and Batman was one of his favorites back then. In his mind, the Nolan movie series is the best portrayal of Batman even better than in the comic books he used to love.
I respectfully disagreed with my friend. I enjoyed this trilogy but it is not better than the comic books. But this conversation got me thinking.
I am a lifelong comic book geek. I love the storytelling with the images, page structure, and dialogue (including word balloons). There is something awesome about picking up a comic book and digesting a story in 22 pages.
On the other hand, not everyone enjoys the medium of comic books. How many Americans read comic books on a regular basis? Maybe a couple millions. The U.S. population is around 313 Million. Even if the number of comic readers are 10 Million (and it is nowhere near that high), then you are are still only talking about 3% of the nation. How many millions of people have seen the Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and the Dark Knight Rises movies? Way more people are engrossed in comic book movies than will ever consider reading comic books.
There is an appeal to watching the characters on the big screen. The stories are fairly self contained. You get enough history and backstory to tell the story at hand without having to know 50 years of history and continuity.
With the movies, you get the great special effects. All three of this years big comic movies had spectacular effects. You leave the theater loving what they can do with technology.
This discussion would not have occurred just a few years ago. Over the last few years, we have been graced with great superhero movies. But it was not that long ago that we were cursed with Daredevil, Superman Returns, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3, and X-Men 3. Over the years, the bad superhero movies have outnumbers the good ones. Currently, the great movies are on our minds and we have started to believe that all comic book movies will be this good but they won’t.
I love this years comic book movies. They have been great and have set a new standard for superhero movies. But even at their best, they are better than the actual comic books. For me, the medium of reading comic books will be my first choice for super hero fun.
Which medium do you prefer your superheroes in?
