Posted by TheClerkCalledFreeway at h24-79-46-43.cg.shawcable.net on March 15, 2002 at 19:18:29:
Ever since man put pen to paper and created the wonderous medium known as "comics", filmmakers have taken the fabled next step in entertainment's evolution and transferred comic books to feature films. With the upcoming Blade II and Spider-Man features this year (and with Hulk, X-Men 2 and Daredevil next year), here is a brief history of comic book movies.
1900s to 1950s
Dozens of comic strip adaptations, minor films. None are amazingly good, except for the cool Superman cartoon.
1966
Batman: The Movie, taking the popular Batman characters and placing them in a longer format. Movie is pretty good for what it was. Adam West is the man.
1978
Golden Age of Comic Book Movies begins with Superman feature film. Christopher Reeve is the man.
1984
Golden Age of Comic Book Movies ends with retarded Superman III and Supergirl feature films.
1986
Howard the Duck film. It, naturally, sucked.
1988
Silver Age of Comic Book Movies begins with the classic Akira.
1989
The ultra-spiffy Batman movie. The Punisher also made, but easily forgiven due to Batman's awesomeness.
1990
Dick Tracy. The coolness continues.
1992
Batman Returns. Not as good as the first, but still good. Captain America also released, but nobody noticed or cared.
1993
Seeing how the Batman movies were doing, stupid began to greenlight comic movies without actually writing good stories or getting good actors, so they all sucked. The Silver Age ends. Cool Batman animated movie (the Mask of the Phantasm) is released, but nobody cares.
1994
Timecop, The Shadow, Fantastic Four...
The Crow...the good amongst the crap. The Mask is good, too.
1995
Tank Girl, Judge Dredd, Batman Forever...
1996
The Phantom, Barb Wire...
1997
Steel. Ugh... Batman & Robin...Ugh... Spawn...okay-ish...if you like style over substance. Men in Black heralds the beginning of the Modern Age of Comic Book Movies...where they don't all suck!
1998
Blade, and it was good.
1999
Mystery Men. Whoo!
2000
X-Men. Yay!
2001
Swell year, with From Hell, Metropolis and the Academy Award-nominated Ghost World (first Oscar nom. ever for a comic flick) released.
2002
Blade II (3/22/02)
Spider-Man (5/3/02)
Men in Black II (7/3/02)
2003
Daredevil (Feb)
X-Men 2 (Summer)
The Hulk (Summer)
So in closing, we're in store for some good, good comic book movies. But remember, for every Ghost World, Batman and X-Men, there will also be a Punisher and Tank Girl...so beware!