Comic Book Movies vs. Superhero Movies

Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Movies

What’s the difference between a comic book movie and a superhero movie? Well, last week’s “Hancock” is a superhero movie that wasn’t adapted from a comic book. “Art School Confidential,” “A History of Violence,” “American Splendor,” “Road to Perdition” and “Ghost World” all started out as comic books before they became films, but there’s nary a superhero to be found in any of them. So what does that make this Friday’s Hellboy sequel and next week’s Batman magnum opus? They’re both about superheroes who appear in monthly comics. They straddle the line, right? “Hellboy II” and “The Dark Knight” can be described as “comic book movies” and/or “superhero movies,” no?

Well, sort of. Think of “comic book movie” as a catch-all term. Most people believe that comic books are a purely superhero-driven medium, “Sin City,” “300″ and “30 Days of Night” notwithstanding. Those folks are either too young or too uninitiated to know that superhero books nearly went into extinction after WWII when cowboy, war and horror comics ruled the racks. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman managed to survive the lean years of the ’50s and the machinations of the hateful Dr. Frederic Wertham. Then the introduction of the Comics Code Authority, a means of self-regulation within the industry, killed the horror comics. Meanwhile, the dawn of the Golden Age of television brought the Old West and the WWII battlefield to black-and-white picture tubes across America, demolishing young collectors’ interest in western and war comics. So who was left standing? Superheroes. And they’ve dominated the medium ever since. As such, it’s easy for some to conflate the term “comic book movie” with “superhero movie.”

But don’t let some sanctimonious fanboy hear you call “The Dark Knight” a comic book movie. Holy cats! He’ll just go off on you, and you’ll never get rid of the smell he’ll leave on your clothes. Yes, “TDK” is technically a comic book movie, but it falls squarely into a sub-genre, the superhero movie, not unlike this summer’s “The Incredible Hulk” and “Iron Man.” Now “Wanted” on the other hand does not fall into that same sub-genre, despite being based on a comic book. It goes into another category, “the non-superhero comic book movie.” Confusingly, the comic book is about supervillains, but the movie isn’t.

I’m not of the opinion that everything needs to be labeled as one thing or another. All this categorization and sub-categorization simply takes away from the fact that the comic book and superhero genres have come into their own in the past decade. Funnybooks are a viable well that Hollywood keeps going back to, and fortunately, there’s enough variety beyond just the capes and cowls to get non-readers excited about the next adaptation, whether or not they know precisely what to call it.

-Brad Lohan

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