Updated: Seven Lesser Known Comic Book Adaptations

Not every comic-to-screen leap was a blockbuster success.

The comic book movie gold rush is in full swing. This summer no less than four of the studios’ tentpole releases draw inspiration from comics, and speculation and surveillance of upcoming projects including Christopher Nolan’s third Batman film and Joss Whedon’s The Avengers routinely fuel top-of-the update online news. Meanwhile Nolan and Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot, The Man of Steel, continues to announce unexpected and enviable casting decisions.

This image has nothing to do with the article. Its just too strange not to share.

Hollywood has gone to the comics well time and time again since the genre first gained notoriety in the early 1940s, most often for low- or mid-budget fare aimed at children and teens. And for every attempt that hit its box office or audience reception target, there are probably three adaptations that tanked, fell victim to restrictive budgets, or just couldn’t garner enough public interest to build a devoted cult fan base.

We’re sure a few of the following are sentimental favorites to forgiving fans of their respective inspirations. (We like The Flash TV series.) Some aren’t bad, considering their limited resources, and some had unrealized potential. And one or two are terrible. But they’re all from comic books, for better or worse.

Sable (TV series) Premiered November 1987; lasted seven episodes. Based on the First Comics series by longtime Green Arrow writer-artist Mike Grell, Sable followed the exploits of freelance mercenary Jon Sable (Lewis Van Bergen) who worked days as an author of children’s books. Rene Russo, very early in her career, played his girlfriend Eden Kendall.

The clip below shows its noirish promise, even if the show’s “alpha dog adventurer helps client of the week” conceit seems kinda passe now.

Steel (Movie) Released August 15, 1997; total U.S. box office: $1.7 million. In his own DC Comics series and in the Justice League comics and cartoon, Steel is a brilliant engineer and inventor who dedicates himself to defending good after Superman saves his life. So what better “actor” to convey such intellectual and moral strength than human marketing platform Shaquille O’Neal? Judd Nelson played the bad guy, while Richard Roundtree (Shaft) appeared as Uncle Joe.

Though admittedly the film carried a modest $16 million budget, “Shaq Steel” still looks as if he swallowed an electromagnet and walked through a junkyard:

Dr. Strange (TV movie) Premiered September 6, 1978. Clad in a snaredrum-tight Disco perm and piles of gold jewelry, New York psychiatrist Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) trains to be Earth’s new “Sorcerer Supreme” and rescue a young woman from the evil sorceress Morgan LeFay (Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter).

Intended as the pilot to a television series that never happened, the telefilm featured Marvel Comics’ honcho Stan Lee as a consultant.

Supergirl (Movie) Released November 21, 1984; total U.S. Box Office: $15 million. For years the poster child for misbegotten comic adaptations, Supergirl was rushed into production after the success of the first two Superman films but struggled for distribution after Superman III flopped. Nevertheless, expanded versions released on DVD have clarified its choppily-edited story and somewhat repaired its reputation.

Peter O’Toole, Mia Farrow, and Faye Dunaway make the supporting cast pretty top-heavy, while underused 80s actress Helen Slater (Ruthless People) makes her debut as super-cousin Kara Zor-El.

Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV Movie) Premiered May 26, 1998. A decade before Samuel L. Jackson’s turns in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, David Haselhoff starred in this low-budget TV movie about Marvel Comics’ Man from U.N.C.L.E. riff Nick Fury. The superspy and his former love Valentine Fontaine (Lisa Rinna) take on rival organization HYDRA for possession of a deadly virus. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight scribe David Goyer wrote the script.

The Hoff plays the hyper-macho Fury as… The Hoff with an eyepatch. Watch how S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying headquarters looks like a basement steam room somewhere. (actual video begins about 23 seconds into clip.)

The Flash (TV Series) Premiered September 20, 1990; lasted 21 episodes. CBS brought the Scarlet Speedster to the small screen apparently motivated by the runaway success of Batman the year before. A TV movie pilot got the family friendly series off and running, but constant schedule shifts and pre-emptions for Gulf War news coverage kept it from building an audience.

Still, The Flash’s (John Wesley Shipp) costume has aged well, as have the special effects. The script quality suffered as the season wore on, however, though fan favorite guests stars like Mark Hamill, Tim Thomerson and Jeffrey Combs frequently livened things up. The series is even collected in a no-frills DVD package.

Captain America (TV movie) Premiered January 19, 1979. An attempt to update the character for the Evil Kenievel/motorcycle years of the 70s, this adaptation featured the original Captain America’s son trying to stop terrorists from detonating a hydrogen bomb on Phoenix, Arizona.

There’s almost nothing about the clip below that doesn’t feel dated, especially the ersatz Cap’s costume and the long, loving takes of motorcycle stunts. A sequel TV movie, released just eleven months later, offered a comparatively more comics-accurate uniform and included Christopher Lee as its villain.

Marvel Studios’ Thor opens nationwide this Friday.

- Michael Kabel

Summer Vacation and Our Recent Best

Enjoy our best features as we enjoy our vacation.

Vacation time again.

It’s July. The sun is shining and the weather’s nice. Screaming Blue Reviews is suspending publication this week to get out and enjoy some time off but also to get caught up on our movie watching. We’ve got a full DVR and several new indies to check out, so our work is cut out already.

While we’re having fun, we suggest you check out some of these other reviews and features we’ve published over the last few months. We hope you like them. Join us when we return Monday, July 20 with our review of this summer’s brainy science fiction spectacle Moon. 

1. We love gangster movies for a lot of reasons, not least of which is their amazing resonance with the times surrounding them. Our Road To Gangsterland feature looks back at eight decades of gangster films, including video clips from some of the best of each era. And for what it’s worth, each film discussed is better than Public Enemies, this summer’s 800lb monster of disappointment.

2. Film Noir is both the gangster movie’s successor and perennial accomplice. Summer, with its steamy heat and oppressive atmospheres, is the perfect climate to take a walk down the genre’s long and seductive side streets. Last summer we talked about five movies to make a good film noir festival, films that merit a place in any film collector’s library but provide an excellent treat for fans of the genre’s bleak worldview and sumptuous textures. There’s a video clip of the notorious scene from Kiss of Death, too, which must be viewed to be believed.

3. If crime and criminals aren’t your thing, consider the careers of seven leading men and seven leading women we think are due for major comebacks. They’re talented performers who’ve made some pretty amazing films, and to a person their presences are missed. Happy to say, but at least two of the actors – a man and a woman – mentioned on the lists have independent films circulating this summer. We hope that’s the start of a trend.

4. With so many comic book movies in the pipeline right now and so much casting news and rumors making Internet headlines, check out this list of seven lesser known comics-to-film adaptations. Some had potential, some never had a chance, some were just… weird. Marvel Comics’ stalwart Captain America has had so many big- and small-screen misfires that he rated a film retrospective all his own.

5. Reading books makes us feel smart, but we’d rather be watching movies – it takes less time and there’s usually some kind of candy. Still, we recently made a list of five books with the potential to become great movies, including ideal casts and directors to do the novels profiled justice. There’s been a surprising amount of feedback on this piece – a surprisingly low amount. Does no one else armchair produce their favorite books into blockbuster films?

6. We also enjoy crap, with our without ironic detachment. Last Thanksgiving we ran a fun piece – we can’t quite call it an expose – on all the cheap knockoffs of American film franchises to come from the nation of Turkey. Some of the video clips will very probably blow y0ur mind. Also, we grew up in the 1990s (the golden age of ironic detachment), and our piece about eight of the worst films from the decade’s first half brought back a lot of memories we were content to leave dormant. We’re also embarrassed by how many we actually saw in the theatre. Be advised each of the cinematic train wrecks profiled comes accompanied with a video clip as proof of its dubious quality.

7. Finally, every now and then we talk about a film we want to encourage people to see, either because it’s under-appreciated or has gotten somewhat obscured by the passage of time. A few are box office turkeys we think got a bad deal from their marketing or public reception. These films include the 1973 realist drama Save The Tiger with Jack Lemmon, 2006′s David Fincher-directed Zodiac, and several more we present together . We’ve also got a list of films that deserve a DVD release but haven’t gotten one yet. Life is too short to watch bad movies, and we sometimes suspect that good movies are made every day. The hard part is finding them to watch.

See you next week.

- Michael Kabel

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Seven Lesser Known Comic Book Adaptations

Not every comic-to-screen leap was a blockbuster success. 

Following the colossal successes of The Dark Knight Returns and Iron Man this past summer, there’s a bit of a gold rush to get comic book adaptations finished and into theatres. This week a lot of the buzz was about casting: Don Cheadle will replace Terrence Howard in the Iron Man sequel, while rumors circulated that Warner Brothers wants Ryan Gosling (Lars and The Real Girl) to lead the upcoming Green Lantern movie and Brandon Routh to play Superman again when and if that film takes flight. Beyond casting announcements, the venerable Internet Movie Database shows film adaptations of Thor, The Flash, The Metal Men, Captain America and others in various stages of development. The Hugh Jackman-led X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens next May, and the Punisher: War Zone sequel arrives this December.

This image has nothing to do with the article. Its just too strange not to share.

Yet, for every attempt that hit its box office or audience reception target, there are probably three adaptations that tanked, fell victim to small budgets, or just couldn’t garner public interest. The following list is only a sampling of the projects that took their place in the “also ran” category. We’re sure a few are sentimental favorites to forigiving fans of their respective inspirations. (We like The Flash TV series.) Some aren’t bad, considering their limited resources, and some had unrealized potential. And one or two are terrible. But they’re all from comic books, for better or worse.

Sable (TV series) Premiered November 1987; lasted seven episodes. Based on the First Comics series by longtime Green Arrow writer-artist Mike Grell, Sable followed the exploits of freelance mercenary Jon Sable (Lewis Van Bergen) who worked days as an author of children’s books. Rene Russo, very early in her career, played his girlfriend Eden Kendall. The clip below shows its noirish promise, even if the show’s “alpha dog adventurer helps client of the week” conceit seems kinda passe now.

Steel (Movie) Released August 15, 1997; total U.S. box office: $1.7 million. In his own DC Comics series and in the Justice League comics and cartoon, Steel is a brilliant engineer and inventor who dedicates himself to defending good after Superman saves his life. So what better “actor” to convey such intellectual and moral strength than human marketing technique Shaquille O’Neal? Judd Nelson played the bad guy, while Richard Roundtree (Shaft) appeared as Uncle Joe. Though admittedly the film carried a modest $16 million budget, “Shaq Steel” still looks as if he swallowed an electromagnet and walked through a junkyard.

Dr. Strange (TV movie) Premiered September 6, 1978. Clad in a snaredrum-tight Disco perm and piles of gold jewelry, New York psychiatrist Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) trains to be Earth’s new “Sorcerer Supreme” and rescue a young woman from the evil sorceress Morgan LeFay (Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter). Intended as the pilot to a television series that never happened, it featured Marvel Comics’ honcho Stan Lee as a consultant.

Supergirl (Movie) Released November 21, 1984; total U.S. Box Office: $15 million. For years the poster child for misbegotten comic adaptations, Supergirl was rushed into production after the success of the first two Superman films but struggled for distribution after Superman III flopped. Nevertheless, expanded versions released on DVD have clarified its choppily-edited story and somewhat repaired its reputation. Peter O’Toole, Mia Farrow, and Faye Dunaway overweigh the supporting cast, while underused 80s actress Helen Slater (Ruthless People) makes her debut as super-cousin Kara Zor-El.

Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV Movie) Premiered May 26, 1998. A decade before Samuel L. Jackson’s cameo in Iron Man, David Hasellhoff starred in this low budget TV movie about Marvel Comics’ Man from U.N.C.L.E. riff Nick Fury. The superspy and his former love Valentine Fontaine (Lisa Rinna) take on rival organization HYDRA for possession of a deadly virus. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight scribe David Goyer wrote the scrpt. The Hoff plays the hyper-macho Fury as… The Hoff with an eyepatch. Watch how S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying headquarters looks like a basement steam room somewhere. (actual video begins about 23 seconds into clip.)

The Flash (TV Series) Premiered September 20, 1990; lasted 21 episodes. CBS brought the Scarlet Speedster to the small screen apparently motivated by the runaway success of Batman the year before. A TV movie pilot got the family-friendly series off and running, but constant schedule shifts and pre-emptions for Gulf War news coverage kept it from building an audience. Still, The Flash’s (John Wesley Shipp) costume has aged well, as have the special effects. The script quality suffered as the season wore on, however, though fan favorite guests stars like Mark Hamill, Tim Thomerson and Jeffrey Combs frequently livened things up. The series is even collected in a no-frills DVD package.

Captain America (TV movie) Premiered January 19, 1979. An attempt to update the character for the Evil Kenievel/motorcycle years of the 70s, this adaptation featured the original Captain America’s son trying to stop terrorists from detonating a hydrogen bomb on Phoenix, Arizona. There’s almost nothing about the clip below that doesn’t feel dated, especially the ersatz Cap’s costume and the long, loving takes of motorcycle stunts. A sequel TV movie, released just eleven months later, offered a comparatively more comics-accurate uniform and included Christopher Lee as its villain.

Monday we’ll have our review of Oliver Stone’s W. Have a super weekend.

- Michael Kabel

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