So I’m guessing that you’ve got plans tonight. In fact, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that most of fandom has had plans for the night of Friday, May 2nd for many weeks now. But I also know that there are a few folks out there who don’t really care too much about X2: X-Men United. These are people who haven’t been looking forward to its release for weeks, who haven’t been debating the merits of the title for the past six weeks, who haven’t started downloading the instant a new trailer hit the Web.
I know because I’m one of those fans. Now admittedly I am somewhat excited about this movie and I will go see it, but I’m not going to go all hardcore fanboy over its release, for a number of reasons (beyond the simple fact that I hate seeing movies in packed theaters).
First and foremost, I must admit that the throngs of fanboys that come out for these events are a little bit off-putting. Every time a movie like this comes out, the only coverage it gets on the news is of the movie’s fans who show up at the theater, dressed as their favorite character. When I went to Spiderman with friends last year around this time, there was a guy at the theater wearing a Spiderman mask. And sure enough, the news reporter who was conducting a serious interview with my friend about how his shop was promoting Free Comic Book Day left his side quickly to go interview the guy with rubber spandex on his head.
Now I will admit that I have behaved this way myself in the past. When Star Trek: Generations came out, I took my toy phaser to the show with me, and despite the fact that I was in high school at the time, I did not think this behavior the slightest bit absurd. But now that I am older and wiser, I recognize just how foolish such behavior must seem to outsiders.
I’m not saying this to rain on anyone’s parade; I’m simply concerned, as a comics advocate, about the picture that this kind of behavior gives the general public. It makes us the subject of ridicule, something I’d prefer comics not be associated with (think about how absurd Triumph the Insult Comic Dog made those Star Wars fans waiting in line look). It makes us look like a childish medium, which we all know we’re anything but. So if we really want the comic industry to reap the benefits of movies based on its properties, we need to behave with a certain degree of decorum. For the most part we do, but all it takes is one costumed fan to ruin things for the rest of us.
More important than the picture our behavior presents is the picture the movie itself presents, and to be honest that picture is not always a good one. Look at Spiderman, for example. This movie is lauded by comics fans worldwide as a brilliant adaptation, a movie that really does comics proud, and it’s cheesy as all get out. Some of the dialogue was downright dreadful, the scenes involving the wrestling match were incredibly tacky, and J. Jonah Jameson was a walking joke.
Maybe people were too stunned by all the explosions to notice just how lame parts of this movie were, but I sat in the theater shaking my head. I was disappointed, not because the movie was making comics look like kiddie fare but because the movie itself was pretty much campy dreck. There were occasional scenes of insight into the characters that were more meaningful, but other than that it was utter silliness.
To be honest, most movies based on popular comics that I’ve seen sucked. There are a few I have a strong attachment to based on my personal preference (like both the 1966 and 1988 Batman movies, one for sheer goofy fun and one for dark brooding action) but that doesn’t mean I want people to think of them when they think of comics. Even those old favorites of mine I can see the flaws in. So I don’t usually get too excited when people talk about comic movies. Two upcoming comic-based movies, Hulk and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, actually frighten me at the prospect of how dreadful they might be.
Some people think that it doesn’t matter if the movie is good or bad, that it is our duty as comic fans to support these movies even if they are god-awful. But while I applaud the effort and the thought behind it, I don’t really think it would do any good. Going to see bad movies based on comics doesn’t really help the comic industry. It just leads to more bad movies being made, and that’s not a good thing. We might think, because Hollywood has come to comics for inspiration of late, that our profile is growing but really it’s not.
You see, because the only comic-based movies that catch the public’s eye as such are action or sci-fi films, the idea most people have that all comics fit into those genres is being perpetuated, becoming part of the public lexicon. All they see are the explosions in Spiderman and they think that all comics are action-packed adventures that feature good’s epic struggle against evil. All these movies do is solidify their misconception of what comics is.
We might know of dozens of other examples of comic-based movies that step outside of the hero genre, movies like Ghost World and From Hell that are more human than superhuman. But these movies fly under the public radar. Even in the case of a pretty well-publicized movie like last year’s Road to Perdition, to this day few people even know it’s based on a graphic novel. In part that’s because the movie industry is afraid to champion our cause, since comics are a big cash cow for them right now.
But that’s also because we don’t champion it as such near as much as we do the hero movies. We geek out and turn out in droves for the hero flicks, memorizing the release dates and planning our summer around the big events. But quick question: how many of you can tell me the release date of American Splendor off the tops of your heads? That’s a movie we should be championing, that’s what we should be turning out in droves for as comics fans, but we’ve all but ignored it. (Oh and the answer was August 15th in LA and NY, with a wider release shortly thereafter.)
The truth of the matter is that properties like American Splendor need our support more than X-Men. Your ticket money won’t really help the comic industry at all, because sales have to go through the theaters and the movie studios first. Very little money gets channeled back to the comic industry, even in the form of future comic sales that are generated because of the film increasing public awareness of the characters. For the most part sales on comics don’t really go up that much after a movie is released. The mainstream comic companies make their money off of movies through licensing fees for the characters themselves, through DVD sales, through toy sales and restaurant tie-ins… through everything BUT comics.
If you really want to help comics, then you should spend that money you were going to spend to support this film and buy comics with it instead. Go buy some X-Men comics and give them to people leaving the theater. It’s really too bad that the 25 cent issue of Uncanny X-Men doesn’t come out until next week, when it’s almost too late to do much good. But if you’re willing to, you could probably buy some back issues of various X-titles for cheap and give them away to movie patrons. There’s an off-chance that someone might then take the book, read it, and want to read more.
Or you could always go out and buy some X-Men comics for yourself and read them. Either way that money goes right into the industry’s hands, and it will benefit the creators whose books you’re buying, allowing them the opportunity to create more. Hollywood can’t save us; they have no desire to save us. They want to mine us for viable properties and then they’ll throw us aside when we’re no longer of use to them.
Again, I don’t want you thinking I’m a big spoilsport, thinking only of the movies through my perspective as a comics advocate. I do want to see X2, especially since I consider the first X-Men movie the best superhero movie made in recent years, perhaps ever. But when I see it, it will be as a movie fan, not as a comics advocate. You won’t hear me complaining about the inaccuracies in Nightcrawler’s portrayal or some such nonsense. All you’ll hear is a discussion of the movie’s merits in and of itself and nothing more. As a comics advocate, I’m much more looking forward to August 15th.
