Comicbook Media Adaptations: The Best and The Worst

[DrNewGod]

Simple enough. What's the best, and what's the worst?

[AJBopp]

Simple enough. What's the best, and what's the worst?

Howard the Duck was the worst. Popeye was right up there, though if you were very familiar with the strip's history there were moments of gold - just not packaged in a coherent way.

Spider-man 2 is unquestionably the best.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I have to admit that there are very few comics adaptations that I can't find something good to say about -- even the crappy/misguided ones -- as long as it stars a DC character who is a favorite of mine.

My other bias is that I allow for more deviations from the classic depiction if the adaptation is a live action version rather than animated. I think animation is more like a moving comic book, so I expect and prefer fewer departures. If you DO depart, you really have to do more to win me over than a live action would. That's why I was perfectly OK with Zach Synder's DCEU movies, but really didn't like Bruce Timm's Batman vs. Harley Quinn or his prelude sequence for Batman: The Killing Joke.

For Marvel, while I'm glad to see tons of comic book movies from them, Marvel has to do more to win me over because I'm not as enthralled by their characters as I am DC's. A good Superman movie will always mean more to me than a good Spider-Man movie. It's just the way it is.

BEST (in no particular order)
- Superman: The Movie
- Superman II
- Man of Steel
- Superman Fleischer
- Batman '66 TV series
- Batman by Tim Burton
- Batman Begins
- The Dark Knight
- Batman: The Animated Series
- Batman Beyond
- Wonder Woman Gal Gadot film
- Justice League/Unlimited Timmverse
- Aquaman film - liked it on first viewing and in the days that have followed and I've been able to sort through it all, my like for the movie is actually increasing, which doesn't always happen for me

- Avengers film
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Captain America MCU trilogy (First Avenger, Winter Soldier, Civil War)
- Iron Man film
- Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon - the closest Marvel ever got to Timmverse
- Spider-Man 2



Objectively Not Great, but I Liked It:
- Super Friends series
- Spider-Man 1967
- Aquaman 1967
- Shazam 1970s live action series
- Filmation's Batman series - both the 1968 and 1977 versions


WORST:
- Josh Trank's Fantastic Four
- Justice League - some good parts like Superman kicking ass, but as time passes I like it less and less
- Thor 1 & 2 - again, some good parts, but mostly disappointing. Huge missed opportunity for me as Thor is my favorite Marvel character.
- Batman vs. Harley Quinn by Bruce Timm - Timm really lost his mojo with this one. Probably my least favorite Batman adaptation ever.


Objectively Bad, but I can find good things to say about it:
- Joel Schumacher's Batman films - if I go in with the mindset that I'm watching a big budget version of the Adam West show, there's a lot to like about them. They are magnificently shot and just look great. Stories are as dumb as all **** and especially in B&R have some awful attempts at humor, but they are a visual feast.


Most of the other stuff is average to good. I know I'm forgetting stuff right now, but I'm sure others will remember.

[Alan2099]

For the worst ...

Constantine
Steel
MTV's Spider-man cartoon
Catwoman
Fan4stic
Avengers: United they Stand
Elektra
Man-Thing
The Live Action Justice League pilot
Amazing Spider-man 2
The Nolan batman trilogy (Yeah. I said it. What'cha gonna do about it?)

[batnbreakfast]

For Batman its
Arkham Asylum + City from Rocksteady
plus
DKR the two-part adaption

Winter Soldier
Dredd
Guardians o t Galaxy
Spider-Man 2 (Raimi)
Spider-Man Homecoming
Daredevil (Netflix)

hey, I like Constantine, Elektra and Howard (its not David Fincher, Roman Polanski or Lars von Trier but what the heck)

[AndrewCrossett]

The Schumacher Batmans. The Catwoman movie with Halle Berry. All Fantastic Four movies. Red Sonja.

For TV, I was really disappointed by the Birds of Prey TV show... never thought it would be possible to make Harley Quinn boring. But it did motivate me to seek out the Gail Simone comics which, along with Transmetropolitan, got me back into reading comics for the first time since childhood.

[Surf]

A tie between Mickey Rourke's Marv in Sin City and Charlie Cox as DD for best.

Worst is tricky. I find the biggest sin to be lack of faithfulness to something that ALREADY HAS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 1 part is costume inaccuracy vs. another part lack of cohesion in a script or screenplay that ALREADY HAS ESTABLISHED STORIES. There are a bunch of movies people claim as bad that don't rise to the violent mix of the two issues above. Schumacher B&R has some staggering production quality. A **** the bs, Schwarzenegger's one-liners are hilarious to me. Real bad but there are worse.

Yikes, forgot about the Man-Thing TV movie, that for sure has a place at worst, runner up for worst. Supes IV will forever be a mark on the soul of the genre, first time I ever left a theater and felt left down, so much worse that I was a kid at the time. The old Nick Hammond Spider-Man TV specials were numbingly boring and if for all the time waiting for some live-action Spider action it was a diminishing result for each 'movie'. That 90s Justice League pilot is uber bad too, I feel that wasn't widely enough released for consideration but then again a lot went into it and it was a finished product. I'd go with that and Man-Thing.

[Spencermalley935]

The Nolan batman trilogy (Yeah. I said it. What'cha gonna do about it?)

Well, not agree for one. Among Live-Action Batman, There very easily the best.

[Spencermalley935]

I'd have to say the the worst adaptation of any comic book character is a close match between Halle Berry's Catwoman and the Josh Trank Fantastic Four movie.

Thankfully, The amount of good adaptations of certain properties far exceed the terrible ones.

[Osiris-Rex]

For best I would include the comic book shows on the CW, Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Riverdale. I actually find them more interesting than some of the comic books.
And considering the budget they have to work with, better than some of the movies.