'Funny Books' to Dark and Gritty: The Journey of Comic Cinema
I remember when the fan-base raged after Man Of Steel. The fact that there was SO much destruction and ended with the Big Blue Boy Scout breaking Zod's neck, ending his life, just didn't sit well with so many. And, although the outcry wailed about how dark and extra gritty DC was getting in the movies, it began a trend. Suddenly, the scribes of both Marvel and DC (and to some extent FOX) began to take a very adult look at stories they gleaned from a medium that used to be called 'funny books'. What began as an outlet for the young and many thought a monumental waste of anyone's time has become the center of discussion and controversy over social media and water coolers all over the world.
What happened was the fan-base grew up. But, although they got older, they never stopped loving the stories from their youth. In fact, they kept reading and built a base so strong it fueled a cinema sensation. Today's comic based movies are due to those kids that mom and dad badgered about finding something else to do with their time. They, now, drive the Hollywood moguls to grasp any and every comic book franchise and hurry it to either TV or the big screen. Because comic nostalgia is cash right now. Much like unreal reality television was a major buzz years ago, today comic book characters are the favorite fodder of the media masters for instant cash.
BUT back to the subject. The themes used in the comic book movies have quickly grew up to match the adults who watch them. Suddenly, dark, adult themes have taken over this comic gravy train. It started, as a precursor, with the Dark Knight trilogy that attempted a more real, boots on the ground look at the comic legends. The villains became darker and scarier and the hero, Batman, became the badass everyone expected. BUT, even as dark (man I wanna say gritty...lol) as the Chrisian Bale movies were, they still didn't broach the real though provoking, mature content we were suddenly confronted with in Man Of Steel.
But that was only the beginning.
But, to be honest, before the fan-boy nation was raging about things they saw wrong with this new strain of Superman stories, the push for more adult themes had already made its presence known. I believe we saw smatterings of this move in Marvel's first big hit, Iron Man way back in 2008. The struggle in the heart of Tony Stark with his legacy which was wrapped up in the industry of war and his change of heart on the direction his company was going may have started this ball rolling. Suddenly it wasn't simply a story about some millionaire in super armor fighting super baddies. This became the trappings for a commentary of our times. We had just lived through a horrible eight years proceeding 9/11 and the fall of the towers in New York. Life had become real. And it had become dark and foreboding. Simple stories about our heroes were not enough. They had to deal with the mood of our times. And Iron Man echoed a people a bit tired of war and culture of war we had been brought up in.
From that moment, we received several wake up calls; showing us real people as super powered heroes in real situations with real personalities and emotions. Starting with movies like HANDCOCK, WATCHMEN, KICK-ASS and SUPER, they all in their own ways began to break through the cookie cutter, funny book approach to comic movies. Iron Man 2 (2010) even showed us the devastation and danger super powers brought to the table in a 'real' world'. It was a glimmer that Marvel understood their fanbase a bit more that, while keeping things PG-13 and a bit light, that they could were dealing with the collateral damage both in property and human damage that comes with a battle like we get in comic books.
And, then, we get 2013 and Iron Man 3 with the return of the terrorist and bombings in the guise of the Extremis virus and Tony's apparently giving up on even his armors. We already see a bit of misgivings from the Man who is dealing with a real world with real dangers and real consequences. Tony is seen dealing with PTSD due to his dropping from orbit in AVENGERS. Here we get Tony Stark the man dealing with extraordinary events in his life. Once again, the fans raged because we got too much Tony. But that was the point of the movie. It was the man who had said previously that 'I and the suit are one' who was now questioning all of that.
Man of Steel drove the nail deep with the death of Zod and the cataclysmic destruction of Metropolis. What the raging fans didn't realize was that there WOULD be consequences. This was no comic book violence. This was real world. So, this movie set the stage for a shift. The DC and Marvel Cinematic Universes had finished its infancy with flying colors and found themselves, much like Marvel in the late 60s, on top and able to move on to stronger themes. Marvel made this transition with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. With this second installment of Steve Roger's trilogy, Marvel began to study over the world we live in and allow it to seep over into the big screen. We moved from the terrorists of Iron Man to the questions of government surveillance and man's right to privacy. This movie became an amazing spy thriller along will carrying on the first Avenger's story.
This continued on with Age Of Ultron as we see the results of the Iron Man Trilogy. There is a natural progression of the story which means, at this time, Marvel was carrying out a plan. From the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. And loss of any trust society had with its heroes to Stark taking matters into his own hands and building project to preempt evil and police the world for them. Much like the debacle of the comic, FORCE WORKS, it was full of human flaws and rested on the shoulders of a rattled Tony Stark. What ensued was more destruction and more civilians in danger. There was reckoning building.
Enter Warner Brothers this year with it's major debut of it's Justice League franchise. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice continued where Man of Steel left off and opened DC's trinity in as close to a real world setting as possible. The themes dealt with were real and adult; revenge, justice, loss, fear and a crossroads of trust for the world and its heroes. Instead of getting a 'funny book' response to the outcry for a Justice League movie, we received a thoughtful and painful ballet of human pathos and downright real, down-to-earth story telling. This, of course, set the fan-base ablaze. Many thought it confusing and mottled and the heroes acting out of character. What it actually portrayed were heroes pushed to their extremes; beyond their usual limits. Like many movies that take ordinary people and put them in extraordinary circumstances, Dawn of Justice showed Batman off the rails a bit due to his experience with the loss of life in Superman's battle with Zod. We got to see all characters both good and bad dancing like marionettes in Lex Luthor's puppet show. It was a sad and painful dance to the emotionally devastating ending.
And, as we look forward to Captain America: Civil War (Why do the titles keep getting longer and longer?), we find that it has much in common with DC's Batman Vs Superman. Heroes find themselves dealing with past battles and being called in question for the mass destruction in the wake of their hard earned victories. The normal people of earth who have been protected by these near godlike beings want answers. The question in both movies is how do you hold heroes with extraordinary powers responsible for death and destruction on their watch? Should we? And who oversees our heroes?
This is the wars featured in our 'comic books' placed in a very real world. The authors of these tomes are no longer content with simply giving us the patented stories that have been written countless times and put in print. They have decided to ask an almost fourth wall question. Like stopping in the middle of an epic story and asking what would be the actual end result of such actions in the real world. THIS is the themes were dealing with in Dawn of Justice and Civil War. Hero pitted against hero over ideals that are equally commendable and, yet, ultimately flawed. These 'godlike' heroes have been exposed as the men and women they are and we've been exposed to what can happen when mistakes are made. And mistakes have been made.
Much like Batman vs Superman, we will find out that ultimately, in the end, the tragic lesson learned is that the bigger the war, the bigger the casualties. Like the death of Quicksilver in Ultron, eggs will be broken as we make this amazing omelet. What happens next will be paramount as we see how this new breed of movies deals with the repercussions of death in this simulated real world. Or will they treat the subject like dismiss-able fodder like so many comic book stories do? The rumors are running amok already about which characters won't make it through Civil War. I think the bigger question is how will Marvel AND DC deal with the 'real world' consequences of death in the upcoming movies. Just how 'real' will the movie makers be willing to be? Are there even darker days down the 'gritty' path (see what I did there?) of comic cinematic universes.
