5 Movie Challenge, originally from fiveflickfix on Tumblr

Your favorite 5 movies based on comics. (No books, just comics/graphic novels)

These are in no particular order.

Hellboy – Before seeing the first movie, I was only vaguely aware of Hellboy due to some ads in some old Dark Horse AvsP reprints I’d gotten.  After seeing it, I was instantly in love with the character and the concept and once I read the comics, whoo boy, that is good stuff.  I still need to read BPRD though.

So I saw Hellboy when it came out in 2003 with my then girlfriend.  This was also the start of my love of Guillermo del Toro and his fucking love vision of monsters.  This was also my first touch of Cosmic Horror and Eldritch Abominations, unless you count Ghostbusters.  I could probably make that argument if I wanted, but for now, Hellboy.  I like the second movie best because there’s more to see, but the first one got Hellboy’s personality right.  At least, it feels that way after reading the comics some.

And, as a side note, Doug Jones has been in damn near everything I’ve ever loved that required a guy in a suit.  Doug Jones is a wonderful human.

The Crow – The Crow is a, well, a francchise now, and it’s one that had a huge effect on younger me.  I got to see it a few years after it had come out and onto video.  I watched it a lot.  I took in the scenery like a sponge.  The soundtrack is still one of my favorites, the score is unique to say the least.  Even the worst actors in it still did a great job.  I would count Anna Thomson’s acting as the weakest but she was still believable and honestly, her weakness lent to that aspect for me.  I might have a soft spot for her given she showed up in Angus as Angus’s soon-to-be step-grandmother.  Angus could occupy its own post for me.

Then there was The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, which was great.  I also watched the second movie, The Crow: City of Angels, and shortly after that, the mostly terrible Salvation, which includes a forced use of the irony mask via the main character’s electrocution mask.  Also around 2000, I discovered the trades for The Crow: Dead Time and Flesh & Blood.  Years later, I got the trade of the original book, and then recently replaced it with the new Author’s Edition where James went back and added a very important piece to the end and some cut content from the original run.  Very important series for me.

Blade – My first experience with Blade was on the 90s Spider-Man cartoon where he shows up to track down a, ahem, defanged Morbius.  For those who didn’t watch the show, vampires ripping into people’s throats was, of course, deemed too violent and scary for our little Saturday Morning Minds.  This lead someone at Fox or Marvel to suggest something far more terrifying:  Morbius now had suckers on his hands.  Blade was still all about killin vampires though.  Somehow, he had a lightsabre and Ghost Rider’s jacket though.

So then, I start seeing promo material for Blade.  It comes out in 97.  My best friend’s dad takes us to see it, because RATED R and we are 12.  Holy shit.  Blade is intense and fun.  Little Ashe was easily frightened by horror stuff, so there was plenty that scared me, but the only part where I actually had any trouble was the “zombie” scene.  That scene is still one of the scariest undead motherfuckers out there, in my opinion.  I like a lot of shit in Blade 2 but there’s also shit that annoys me.  Mostly, Whistler’s return and the thing with the vamp princess.  Technically, that was also my first exposure to del Toro but I didn’t know it.  I’ve never read any of the Blade comics however.

Wonder Woman – Now, I double checked myself first so I could accurately make this statement.  This is the first and currently only Wonder Woman movie.  There was a movie/pilot for the 70s show, but it was completely different from what actually ended up on TV.  No Lynda Carter, no costume, secret agent stuff.  And this movie was lots of fun.  It was great.  It handled the origin and first adventure quite handily, and since this was the FIRST one ever, you can still appreciate the origin stuff.  As opposed to Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, whose origins are so worn out at this point it’s ridiculous.  Though, Diana’s origin story is pretty damn cool.

So why include this on my list?  Well, again, FIRST AND ONLY WONDER WOMAN MOVIE.  Secondly, I love it and the jokes about “armor clad models” are great.  The voice acting is on point for what you’d expect from DC animated stuff (the queen, Andrea Romano at the helm directing the actors).  The animation is solid.  The story is fun.  And most importantly, it fucking destroyed all the arguments about Wonder Woman’s story being “tricky” before anyone had started making them.  You could seriously take this movie, translate it for live-action, cast it, shoot, release it, and it would make some bank.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Yo, I’m almost 30, that means I grew on Ninja Turtles.  So much Ninja Turtles.  Three movies, like 28 seasons of cartoon, toys, shitty musical special, a shitty musical tour, the Archie comics.  Rob Paulsen (who was in every other cartoon I watched as well).  UNCLE FUCKING PHIL.  There was no stopping it.  That’s why they gave it to Michael Bay.  He already made an action series out of one 22 minute toy commercial already.

The original movie though?  It’s still so good.  The fight choreography is great.  The music is great.  Elias Koteas is great.  Elmo is great.  Elmo?  Yes, Kevin Clash, who made Elmo famous voiced and puppeteered Splinter.  It’s connected enough to the cartoon that we could all recognize it.  The guys had their colored bandana-masks.  They never outright murdered the Foot soldiers.  They could be silly (Mikey’s role as the party dude has been a staple since).  But the movie still has maturity to it.  It’s teenagers struggling with their place in the world.  Struggling with their identities.  Struggling with loss and acceptance.  Sure, it’s 4 humanoid turtles kicking the crap out of people, but there’s still a story in that first movie.  There’s still emotional impact.  That started to go away in the second one.  By the time the third rolled around, you could see there was no life left by the fact that the suits no longer had any life in them.

And now we have Shrek Turtles.  Who apparently do murder people from what I’ve heard.  I don’t know.  Just go watch that first one.  You’ll have a better time.