Which MCU Characters Are Most Faithful To Their Sources?

[Midvillian1322]

Its about faithful to the source, Uncle Ben and Spiderman are interchangeable, You can't tell a batman film without not having to an extent the presence of what his parents death meant. you cant tell an xmen story without what separates or binds mutants and humans together and you definitely cant tell a superman story without him leaving kypton to come to earth. Spiderman is missing that foundation where all his stories were born.



But the majority will tell you how much MCU Spiderman is the least most faithful, which is what the OP asked.

Except uncle Ben isn't removed they just know the audience already knows about him. You can make a batman movie without flashback to his parents death all they need to be is dead. People know the rest. They seen it 5 times. Peter still became spidrrman after his uncle passed, they just didn't feel the need to do the same story.. again. The next reboot of Superman doesn't need to Show Krypton being blown up, everyone already knows. Not showing it isnt the same as removing it. Its just choosing to focus on more original things that haven't been covered by 7 other movies.

As far as the topic your saying something less faithful doesn't Work like with Spidey. Which again the majority of the movie going audience disagrees. Now if all you said was Spiderman is less fsithfull then fine, they changed alot. Incorporated Stark alot. That's fine,as far as not working though.... that's a you thing.

You knock the MCU for things that are less fsithfull in one thread and then defend snyder and Praise the Joker in the others. Faithfulness only matters in its execution. Joker is way less faithful then Dr Strange but I still think its a better movie then strange.

[Castle]

Except uncle Ben isn't removed they just know the audience already knows about him. You can make a batman movie without flashback to his parents death all they need to be is dead. People know the rest. They seen it 5 times. Peter still became spidrrman after his uncle passed, they just didn't feel the need to do the same story.. again. The next reboot of Superman doesn't need to Show Krypton being blown up, everyone already knows. Not showing it isnt the same as removing it. Its just choosing to focus on more original things that haven't been covered by 7 other movies.

As far as the topic your saying something less faithful doesn't Work like with Spidey. Which again the majority of the movie going audience disagrees. Now if all you said was Spiderman is less fsithfull then fine, they changed alot. Incorporated Stark alot. That's fine,as far as not working though.... that's a you thing.

You knock the MCU for things that are less fsithfull in one thread and then defend snyder and Praise the Joker in the others. Faithfulness only matters in its execution. Joker is way less faithful then Dr Strange but I still think its a better movie then strange.

Its sounds more like a soap opera without tieing the loose ends. the audience knows the secret already but the characters don't know yet and the audience is waiting for the secret to be exposed to the characters. imagine if this never happens.

Even if a flashback can seem too much, there should have been a strong mention or narration of who Uncle Ben was. Batman has done it about 4 times, So it can not be all that bad for Spiderman to mention who Uncle Ben means to him or have Ben come up in a talk with Aunt May or MJ.

You knock the MCU for things that are less fsithfull in one thread and then defend snyder and Praise the Joker in the others. Faithfulness only matters in its execution. Joker is way less faithful then Dr Strange but I still think its a better movie then strange.

I never defended anything about Snyder that I am against here. those are two different things. I said Snyder's Superman was a progression of superman's story on film, however Snyder's Superman had Jor El and Kypton's destruction, which is the catalyst of why superman is superman,. the same as uncle ben is the reason for Spiderman.

I also see Uncle Ben as a 2nd source less faithfulness. Spiderman in the source is noone's fanboy. Why are the movies making him obsess about Iron Man and wanting to be part of the Avengers as his life goals?

[The Overlord]

The first Iron-man was great but Obadiah Stane in the comics had nothing to do with his origin, not showing up until close to #200. Also, the experience that made him IM only reinforced Stark's dedication to building weapons for the old old U.S.A. because the Commie Menace had to be stopped. His anti-weapons stance and his alcoholism were a decade later. Good movie. One could argue that it includes all the elements but just squeezes them together all at once.

GOTG quarried my mind, After the film was out I had to learn more about the series and download some comics online to see if marvel has done anything so far off. It turns out they hadn't. We were talking of 2nd tier comic characters in another thread but prior to the movies I think GOTG were more like 4 tier characters to Iron Man and Thor that were 2nd tier characters.

This could be the very reason there is nothing about the comics that is faithful to the movies. I think to a limited extent, it worked for GOTG but for such an Iconic character like Spiderman and his life with Uncle Ben, it doesn't.

The problem is it seems like some fans confuse faithfulness with quality or not understand how some elements of something could become dated and not work anymore in modern times.

The Cold War has been over for 30 years, tying Iron Man to that in 2008 would have been a mistake, and having Stane be there from the beginning makes sense for the film.

People are mad about a lack of Uncle Ben in the MCU films, but they killed off Uncle Ben twice in the films already, how would this time in the MCU be different? I think focusing less on Uncle Ben makes sense for the MCU, the fact that he died on screen again in the 2012 film seemed redundant.

Really it seems like some fans just want to see the same things over and over again and for the general audience that gets boring. You can argue BTAS Mr. Freeze was not faithful to the original character, but that character was dull and the BTAS character was an improvement. Major characters dying in Endgame didn't happen in canon, but I think you had to have some characters die and have their death stick.

Frankly, I want some surprises in these movies and faithfulness should never be confused with quality. That doesn't mean throw out everything as Fan4stic did, it means honoring the spirit of something is more important than adapting everything to the letter.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

For all it’s faults, Fant4stic actually had some foundations from the Ultimate Universe.

[Alan2099]

Spiderman in the source is noone's fanboy. Why are the movies making him obsess about Iron Man and wanting to be part of the Avengers as his life goals?

That was very much taken from comics right around the new Avengers/Civil War stuff. It's mentioned at one point by Captain America that Spider-man wears his desire for a father figure on his sleeve.

Now in the comics it doesn't work out because comic Ironman is a lot more flawed than movie Ironman.

Even ignoring Ironman, Spider-man has a history in the comics of looking up to and fanboying Reed Richards. I suppose without a Fantatic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he just latched on to the next closest thing.

[Castle]

That was very much taken from comics right around the new Avengers/Civil War stuff. It's mentioned at one point by Captain America that Spider-man wears his desire for a father figure on his sleeve.

No it wasn't. that was not civil war's real story.

Now in the comics it doesn't work out because comic Ironman is a lot more flawed than movie Ironman.

This is true and it proves my point that Iron Man 1 was the most faithful.

Even ignoring Ironman, Spider-man has a history in the comics of looking up to and fanboying Reed Richards. I suppose without a Fantatic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he just latched on to the next closest thing.

There is a difference between respect/admiration and fanboying.

Uncle Ben is the one major influence of Spiderman. it goes beyond admiration. Spiderman respects many heroes in the comics but he is noone's fanboy.


the most iconic marvel character is not fanboy to anyone in the comics. Spiderman in the comics prefers to go solo and reluctant likes to join teams.

I think MCU may have overstated their impact with Spiderman to change things that much.

[BeastieRunner]

It was not faithful to GOTG. Marvel has never written any comedy toned story about GOTG.

The early MTV reality-style debrief cutaways were hilarious.



There was lots of bright and dark humor in the DnA GotG. The Marvel Adventures GotG were full of humor. Vance Archer GotG had humorous parts, too.

Have you read much GotG?

Also, be mindful of your post from earlier. vvv

You may be mistaken faithful as a 100% adaption of the source. Let me just come out and say, that is an impossible achievement. there is a difference between that and the characterisation itself.

That is actually a rather astute standard for faithfulness versus slavish repetition, which Gunn's GotG was most definately.

I disagree. Drax in particular is way different from the DnA depiction. Peter Quill was more of world weary ex-superhero forced into a leadership role than a happy go-lucky Han Solo wannabe that was in a state of arrested adolescence. Rocket wasn't so much "angry new york/jersey guy" in terms of personality. And let's not get into Mantis.

Mind you, i love both GotG movies but the members do vary considerably from their comic counterparts imo.

Drax is the largest deviation. He's old-school, jelly-bean Power Stone swallowing dumb Drax with cool, calculating, Thanos-killing Drax's powers/look.

The rest have more or less been similar to their MCU counterparts. Even Mantis. She was a bit of goof in Surfer way back when. Pete slowing evolved away from his element gun, talking Ship traveler days the further Annihilation and post-Annihilation went. He was a quipy as ever in the early to mid DnA days. Rocket was always a bit of the heart of gold ******* Cockney techy. It's really just a change in accent from comic to movies. Gamora is more or less the same, just less bad-ass than the comic. I'm hopeful post Endgame GotG-14 Gamora is more Dangerous Women in the Galaxy that before.

They're faithful, not exact clones of the comic. Which is fine and sometimes needed in cases of confusing continuity and other issues (Captain Marvel and Ant-Man benefited from streamlining).

Now auxiliary characters like the OG Guardians and villains. Not so much ...

I'm a huge fan of both versions, too, and when I went to the first Guardians movie, it was the first Marvel movie since Captain America that felt like it jumped off the page. It really felt liek a story DnA would write using those chracters. Doctor Strange was the next one for me.

[90'sCartoonMan]

Vision doesn't necessarily deviate the most from the source of any of the MCU characters, but he's one of those that I think deviates the most. He spends almost no time in the films struggling with who and what he is, which was one of his major 616 beats.

You can only do so much with a 2-3 hour movie as opposed to monthly comic books. I think Vision wearing clothes yet still phasing through walls in Civil War and then him following his heart over his duties in Infinity War showed his struggle with humanity. I guess I'd say the biggest thing missing from Vision was no Wonder Man to make him question his individuality.

I also see Uncle Ben as a 2nd source less faithfulness. Spiderman in the source is noone's fanboy. Why are the movies making him obsess about Iron Man and wanting to be part of the Avengers as his life goals?

Not so much 616, but this was fairly true to the Ultimate version. Ultimate Iron Man never had a secret identity, and in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #4, Peter Parker writes an essay on how much he admires Tony Stark/Iron Man, and there's shades of Spider-Man fanboying Iron Man. Once he meets Fury, him becoming part of SHIELD/The Ultimates is inevitable (although he's not as enthusiastic in the comics as he is in the movies).

People are mad about a lack of Uncle Ben in the MCU films, but they killed off Uncle Ben twice in the films already, how would this time in the MCU be different? I think focusing less on Uncle Ben makes sense for the MCU, the fact that he died on screen again in the 2012 film seemed redundant.

Really it seems like some fans just want to see the same things over and over again and for the general audience that gets boring.

2012 and 2017 is a VERY long time, especially from the POV of a young audience. The problem is, if Marvel looks at the Raimi movies and the Amazing movies and goes "They did Uncle Ben, they did J. Jonah Jameson, they did the Osborns...we can't do any of that", then they are avoiding some key elements of who Spider-Man is and what made him Marvel's flagship character.

[The Overlord]

You can only do so much with a 2-3 hour movie as opposed to monthly comic books. I think Vision wearing clothes yet still phasing through walls in Civil War and then him following his heart over his duties in Infinity War showed his struggle with humanity. I guess I'd say the biggest thing missing from Vision was no Wonder Man to make him question his individuality.



Not so much 616, but this was fairly true to the Ultimate version. Ultimate Iron Man never had a secret identity, and in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #4, Peter Parker writes an essay on how much he admires Tony Stark/Iron Man, and there's shades of Spider-Man fanboying Iron Man. Once he meets Fury, him becoming part of SHIELD/The Ultimates is inevitable (although he's not as enthusiastic in the comics as he is in the movies).



2012 and 2017 is a VERY long time, especially from the POV of a young audience. The problem is, if Marvel looks at the Raimi movies and the Amazing movies and goes "They did Uncle Ben, they did J. Jonah Jameson, they did the Osborns...we can't do any of that", then they are avoiding some key elements of who Spider-Man is and what made him Marvel's flagship character.

Except those movies still exist, they are played on TV constantly and are on streaming for anyone to watch.

If we saw Uncle Ben's death again in the MCU, how would it be different than the other 2 times he died on film? If you just repeat the same beats from the previous film series, what are delivering for someone who wants to see something new from these characters? They can mention Uncle Ben in the MCU, but I do not want to see him die again.

[Frobisher]

Didn't The Dark Knight have the singular honour of being the first Batman movie to not feature Martha Wayne's pearl necklace scattering in slow motion? I guess my point is that I don't recall anyone at the time being unable to comprehend Batman's motivation without seeing a flashback of his parents' death for the one millionth time. I think audiences are (just about) sophisticated enough to come into a pervert costume vigilante maniac film and be like, "ok, I saw Bruce Bronson's entire hockey team die in the last one, inspiring him to become the puck, but this is the next story and now this is happening." Or at least we're so culturally entrenched in the milieau of this sort of thing that someone could come into the sequel cold and subconsciously backfill some kind of tragic past that made Sandra Simpson start dressing as a furry dominatrix and beat up bankrobbers.

[90'sCartoonMan]

If we saw Uncle Ben's death again in the MCU, how would it be different than the other 2 times he died on film? If you just repeat the same beats from the previous film series, what are delivering for someone who wants to see something new from these characters? They can mention Uncle Ben in the MCU, but I do not want to see him die again.

Uncle Ben is more than his death. He helped forge Peter's morality. He encouraged his interest in science. He taught him to laugh. There's so much story potential in him (and we'd have to have a much different Uncle Ben this time around as the man married to Marisa Tomei's May Parker) that not wanting to touch him at all disappoints me. I'd love to see some flashbacks to Peter's life with Ben and then re-affirm that a driving factor in what made him Spider-Man is his failure to prevent Ben's death. There's no need to do a straightforward origin story like the first 10-15 minutes of the first Spider-Man movie, but there are many different ways to present Spider-Man's backstory.

Didn't The Dark Knight have the singular honour of being the first Batman movie to not feature Martha Wayne's pearl necklace scattering in slow motion? I guess my point is that I don't recall anyone at the time being unable to comprehend Batman's motivation without seeing a flashback of his parents' death for the one millionth time. I think audiences are (just about) sophisticated enough to come into a pervert costume vigilante maniac film and be like, "ok, I saw Bruce Bronson's entire hockey team die in the last one, inspiring him to become the puck, but this is the next story and now this is happening." Or at least we're so culturally entrenched in the milieau of this sort of thing that someone could come into the sequel cold and subconsciously backfill some kind of tragic past that made Sandra Simpson start dressing as a furry dominatrix and beat up bankrobbers.

For a sequel, sure, but for a reboot where an audience is supposed to realize this is the same source material but not a continuation of the last movie? That could be different. Also, while audiences in general are more sophisticated (and we have the internet to provide us information), every movie is going to be somebody's first.

[Cyke]

I know it's not great for this thread, but I'm glad that we haven't seen MCU Uncle Ben so far. We don't need him to die a third time on screen (fourth if you consider that Raimi retold/retconned his death in the third movie). So MCU Spidey is about 80/20 to me -- I like that youthful vibe that, to me, echoes the 60s. He's missing a good chunk of guilt and angst, though, that fuels a big chunk of his comic book heroism.

TBH, I don't think Maguire's Spidey quite captured the youthful energy, while Garfield was a bit more modern nerd and frustrated but just not in good movies. (also, I still LOL that some folks considered Garfield's Peter to be too cool to be a nerd, ignoring that nerds, like any other group, have evolved since the 80s).

With that said, I enjoy Holland's Spidey but he's not quite there yet.

----

On a side, I really admire the gravitas and dignity that Evans puts into Cap, so that comes close to being accurate to me (at least the 616 version). Tony's famed level of snarkiness and capacity for the perfect retort are in some ways an RDJ invention (while he was always a sarcastic playboy in the comics, he wasn't such a wisecracking eyeroller until RDJ defined him for a generation). And Paul Rudd's Scott Lang may be accurate by default of Lang being much more of an everyman than Hank Pym.

Something about Ruffalo's Banner doesn't sit right with me, though. I just can't reconcile Banner of the comics with Ruffalo the actor, maybe because Ruffalo's characters in other movies tend to be the same guy with varying levels of anxiety.

[Midvillian1322]

I know it's not great for this thread, but I'm glad that we haven't seen MCU Uncle Ben so far. We don't need him to die a third time on screen (fourth if you consider that Raimi retold/retconned his death in the third movie). So MCU Spidey is about 80/20 to me -- I like that youthful vibe that, to me, echoes the 60s. He's missing a good chunk of guilt and angst, though, that fuels a big chunk of his comic book heroism.

TBH, I don't think Maguire's Spidey quite captured the youthful energy, while Garfield was a bit more modern nerd and frustrated but just not in good movies. (also, I still LOL that some folks considered Garfield's Peter to be too cool to be a nerd, ignoring that nerds, like any other group, have evolved since the 80s).

With that said, I enjoy Holland's Spidey but he's not quite there yet.

----

On a side, I really admire the gravitas and dignity that Evans puts into Cap, so that comes close to being accurate to me (at least the 616 version). Tony's famed level of snarkiness and capacity for the perfect retort are in some ways an RDJ invention (while he was always a sarcastic playboy in the comics, he wasn't such a wisecracking eyeroller until RDJ defined him for a generation). And Paul Rudd's Scott Lang may be accurate by default of Lang being much more of an everyman than Hank Pym.

Something about Ruffalo's Banner doesn't sit right with me, though. I just can't reconcile Banner of the comics with Ruffalo the actor, maybe because Ruffalo's characters in other movies tend to be the same guy with varying levels of anxiety.

Kinda how I feel about Spidey. Except I hated Mcguire thought he was horrible for the role but was in two good movies. While Garfield was great as Spiderman. His voice and sarcasm in suit were spot on but he was just in sub par movies unfortunately. Holland isn't quite there yet for me either. My favorite Peter Parker but his Spidey only has flashes of that classic quipy banter. I think he just has the benefit of being in the MCU and being in well made movies. Hopefully they lean more into the non stop sarcasm in the next film when he's got the suit on.

Evans imo is gonna be the hardest actor to replace. I can see another actor coming in and doing something different with Wolverine or Ironman and making it their own. But Caps has less wiggle room as a character and Evans captured the characters personality so well.

[Castle]

Do we have to see uncle ben die twice? NO.

Do we have to see Spiderman always mention Uncle's ben impact at some point in a movie series? Yes.

Those who are saying Holland's Spiderman is the most faithful seem to be ignoring how we want Ben to be protrayed.. they are all jumping to the conclusion that we all want to see him die for the 3rd time in a movie.

its not about Ben's death, its about the legacy of his death.

[Frobisher]

For a sequel, sure, but for a reboot where an audience is supposed to realize this is the same source material but not a continuation of the last movie? That could be different. Also, while audiences in general are more sophisticated (and we have the internet to provide us information), every movie is going to be somebody's first.

That's definitely been true of both comic books and TV serials in the past, where often you'd just find something on a rack or while channel surfing and see where it went; but of course both media have more recently moved to a more serialised format, where audiences are expected to be savvy enough to at least begin from the season premiere or the first issue of the arc, rather than having Claremontian proclamations at the start of each issue explaining what each character's special power is.

Now, reboots - I think we've clearly seen properties like Batman, Spider-man, and Superman reach a point where there's a level of saturated cultural knowledge, and we can go into a Nolan or Snyder reboot and people already basically know what the deal with the character is. This may not be as true for markets such as China and India where Western properties like Star Wars haven't had as much traction, but even that seems to be changing.