Comic books are the foundation of the Superhero genre that is so popular in film today, they have shaped a large genre of film and arguably shaped a large portion of the youth that grew up on them. Through morals and laws of their own, these Superhero characters inspired kids and their animation style inspired a young generation of artists. With their roots being placed around 18th century Japan and mid-eighteen hundred Europe, they grew hugely popular in America mid-20th century, through newspaper segments, generally with a comedic genre.
The genre of Superhero comic books rose around the 1930’s and 1940’s and have remained one of the most popular genres since. The most notable of Superhero comic publishers, are Marvel Comics, founded by Martin Goodman in 1939, with the face of publisher Stan Lee today in the cinematic universe, and DC Comics, founded in 1934 by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.
The early 21st century, 2008 to be precise was a big year for the Superhero genre comic books and film, and has been since, it was the year Marvel began their huge cinematic universe, with ‘Iron Man’ (Jon Favreau, 2008). It also marks the creation of arguably one of the best film trilogies of the 21st century, ‘The Dark Knight’ (Christopher Nolan, 2008), which one could say started the mainstream superhero trend in cinema. Tim Stafford, a visiting lecturer of English Literature at the University of Hertfordshire who has studied comic book film adaptions since 2000, states that “Marvel are leading the way in adaptions. They have hired really interesting directors and actors and each film has its own style.” There has been a certain level of competition in the comic book world between DC Comics and Marvel Comics, however, in the film world, Marvel has taken a heavy lead, after such DC comic film adaption flops such as ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (Zack Snyder, 2016), and ‘Suicide Squad’ (David Ayer, 2016). This is down to many reasons, one being the variety, where Marvel dominate, as Tim States; “Taika Watiti’s Ragnarok next to The Russo Brothers’ Infinity War and Civil War works so well for variety”, whereas DC films tend to all have the same dark setting, look and theme. When speaking further on the future of variety for Marvel films, Tim suggests that; “there’s a horror comic, Werewolf by Night, which is in the Marvel Universe and now Doctor Strange has opened up the supernatural side, we could have that.”
Tim was inspired into the area of comic book research through the series of ‘X-Men’ (Brian Singer, 2000) films in the early 2000’s, “I like the gender balance in it and Wolverine is my favourite character. There’s also a series called The Ultimate’s, which is my favourite comic book ever”. Through his experience teaching at school he decided that “comics are a great way to combine literacy and art and I felt that they were underrated as art forms. That’s not the case anymore!”. In Tim’s book, ‘Teaching Visual Literacy in the Primary Classroom’, which he wrote in 2010, he notes the importance of visual literacy when teaching. When discussing his research, he states; “Comic books are a great leveller. Because they don’t have text in large amounts, children who are not confident readers are not switched off. Even very good readers can still learn to read the images in a sophisticated way.” This seems like a good alternative to any fiction that young children have to read in school at an early age, perhaps not in replace of historical or scientific text however. He continues, “They are a unique textual form which develops the child’s ability. As children live in a visual culture, comic books extend their natural visual reading skills and provide a great alternative to books.” Visual learners are much more apparent in today’s society, where people are surrounded by screens and technologies wherever they go.
2018 will be a big year for Marvel, almost a make-or-break for their cinematic universe, with 10 years of superhero films combining together all for the first time. Tim believes that the film will do well because “Marvel has constructed a great universe and then made the audience excited to see the characters team up. The films are continuous yet do not require a detailed knowledge of the previous films to enjoy them. Although if you are a fan like me, they knit together. The differences in tone are positive’. However, the next big film in the franchise, the upcoming ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2018), may require some background knowledge, as the films have more-or-less led to this climactic instalment.
Another reason why this year is a big year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is because of the diversity prominent in a couple of the new instalments coming out, for example, ‘Black Panther’ (Ryan Coogler, 2018), which was released recently, and ‘Captain Marvel’ (Anna Boden, 2019), featuring the first female-led Marvel film. Tim believes that “the next stage of comic book adaptions (superhero) will be diversity. Wonder Woman and Black Panther, which move away from the male white superhero, have both been astounding hits.” The studio’s have begun to create less obvious characters which means, “we might start to see more racially, gender-diverse heroes and perhaps even some diverse sexualities”.
But why are comic books so in fashion? Why was something so categorised in the 1980’s and 1990’s as being something for ‘nerds’ suddenly attracting everyone? Arguably this is because the rise in the superhero cinematic universe in the early 2000’s; “I think it’s fantastic. Comic books seem to be here to stay.” Tim says, “Studio’s love comic book films because they lend themselves to multiple films and franchises and the comic books they are based on are a complete universe.” One could argue that the film industry has purposefully created this trend of popularity for comic book films. “In the last few years, comic book audiences have changed and the rise of the ‘geek’ which has become a proud label has meant that more younger men and women have become fans.”
When speaking on the future of comic book adaptions in films, Tim suggested that he would “like to see solo movies for Black Widow and some of the female characters”, this would further Marvels diverse creations. Overall, diversity seems to be the future for superhero films, where it doesn’t just appeal to the white man. This year will be dominated by superhero film adaptions, with the likes of ‘Aquaman’ (James Wan), ‘Deadpool 2’ (David Leitch), and another X-Men film; ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ (Simon Kinberg), which judging by the recent films, which have questionable success, but all in all, this year is a year to look forward to for comic book and superhero film fans.
Tim Stafford: t.1.stafford@herts.ac.uk
Marvel ScreenTalk 