Five Comic Book Arcs That Would Be Awesome For Films. 

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Five Comic Book Arcs That Would Be Awesome For Films.

The comic book has come to the forefront this last decade, spirited by breakthroughs in motion capture and digital imaging….

The comic book has come to the forefront this last decade, spirited by breakthroughs in motion capture and digital imaging. Now the underground art of panelled storytelling is mainstream and, like an odd crustacean emerging from the damp underside of a rock, the nerd has emerged into shafts of sunlight, wizened and triumphant. Suddenly the superhero has overtaken those of mythological or even historical origins (at least in popularity) and it seem as though these caped figures have channelled the rebellious individualism of the cowboy and the chivalry of the medieval knight. And yet they are different. Deformed and abnormal. But still comprised of those stoic qualities required for upending the horrors of our age, namely resource-hungry geopolitics, the changing climate and the mitigation of energy. And, which is more, they fight in teams. Little flawed communities that speak directly to the visceral and human struggle within each of us.

So, in a tribute to the importance of superheroes, I’m going to ram the double-pronged Marvel-DC scope further into the sunless lands, whilst also coddling the hallowed site of ongoing colonoscopies, which is more commonly known as Hollywood.

Here are five comic book narratives that would be awesome on the big screen…

This is a recent arc that, if God’s paying attention up there, might have enough “umph” to bring Darren Aronofsky back into the picture. The story is simple enough: Wolverine has lost his healing factor, which attracts every opportunistic mercenary from the gardens of Japan to the metal jungles of New York. Things look bad for our resilient wild-man. The bounty is enough to make the Rothschilds blush and Wolverine is pitched against all of his toughest adversaries, one after the other, in a visceral, swan-song battle.

At the start Wolverine is enjoying a quiet existence, frequenting bars and chewing cigars. Then Nuke arrives, hulking, nationalist grunt and first bounty hunter, shouldered by assorted goons. He goes ahead and threatens the tender at Wolverine’s local, only to receive a letter from ol’ Logan Scissorhands, which marks a battleground and reads: ‘come on you cowards.’

I guess it’s no surprise that a whole lot of blood and carnage follows. Nuke gets a Glasgow kiss, Sabretooth has a run in with a ronin and a whole lot of assorted goons get shredded. In the finale Wolverine is reunited with his creator and discovers several little Wolverines and future super soldiers. He disrupts the experiments and, kinda like a hairy Han Solo, winds up coated in freezing adamantine. Finally defeated, our hero drops to his knees and becomes a rippled, silver statue looking out over the golden, pillared rocks of an American desert.

The sun sets. Curtain closes. Everyone predicts his return.

This story kicks off with the creation of the Human Torch and follows the rise and fall of countless caped crusaders and their respective Buzz-Killingtons. A film version would give the audience a view of the golden age of superheroes unlike anything they’d seen before. A feeling of being the spectator. I mean, this graphic novel is such a fine example of how a different lens can offer an entirely new perspective on a familiar universe. For once the action is seen from the ground, not the sky, and for the most part we follow an everyman; a photographer trying to make a living, shuffling through a world of ongoing superhero battles.

It would be a Marvel film like no other. The only problem is that it would end with the death of Gwen Stacy, which would mean redoing something we’ve recently seen before. However I think we can rest assured that the folks behind Spider-Man would be game for that.

“Knightfall.” Written by Chuck Dixon, Jo Duffy, Alan Grant, Dennis O’Neil and Doug Moench.

Okay, so right away the title is pretty damn gripping right? And everyone loves a good pun. The heart of this story comes from the mitigation of Batman’s influence and the slow deterioration of his strength as he slugs through villain after villain, driven by vagaries of rage; memories of the fallen Robin, until finally he meets the inexorable Bane. Expect some more wars of attrition and Tom Hardy breaking another spine.

The great thing about this arc is that it conveys the lengths that Batman will go to. It shows us his outermost limits and then immortalises him by continually pushing him past them. Slowly we get a grip on the sheer, overwhelming power of the Dark Knight; his Christ-like ability to engage in physical torture for the purpose of preserving a handful of fragile ideals.

For this one our narrator, Joe Sacco, recalls his experiences of living in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict. His self-deprecating, frank and open voice juxtaposes his outsider fears with the stoic resilience of the Palestinian people. I don’t want to detract from the mastery of the panelled storytelling. But I just think this would make a damn fine animation. I’d assume it would be something of the same ilk as Waltz With Bashir. And there’s one particular image that really stands out, which is Lord Balfour, sipping tea, surrounded by lions, flags and all the brazen panoply of British empirical might. He declares, ‘a land without a people, for a people without a land.’ Cut to: a dusty, busy street in Palestine, crowded with people, soon to be refugees.

Really the genius of the narrative is in its subtle gear shifts and unassuming honesty. The way, through anecdotal reflections and solemn conversations over tea, it shines a glaring light on both Israel and the west. I just think it would be great to have a movie that portrays the hushed everyday of the Occupied Territories.

“The Resurrection of Colossus.” Written by Joss Whedon.

Faced with the sweeping Legacy Virus, mutantkind’s only hope of survival is a cure discovered by Beast. However the cure needs a living host, a catalyst, and, as it happens, a martyr too. Someone willing to give up the ghost for the sake of their comrades. In steps our protagonist: Colossus, the metallic Goliath and Russian farmhand/tractor-stopper. Driven by the loss of his sister Illyana, who died of the disease, Colossus makes the ultimate sacrifice; he takes the cure, dies and leaves his great love, Kitty Pryde, to deal with his ashes.

With the real Man of Steel out of the picture our anonymous villain makes his first appearance. Get ready to shake your fists – it’s the whiskered, frog-faced alien warlord, Ord! So he goes ahead and gets up to some disruptive chicanery, auspiciously kidnapping a handful of one-percenters. Meanwhile Dr Kavita Roe has just developed another cure. This time it’s one that will combat mutation itself. Cue a heart-rending action-sequence between Wolverine and Beast. Some heavy fighting, perhaps? Or maybe a little dialogue concerning deep existential agony and torturous ideas about what true beauty is. X Men 3 did it, you say. Well did they have the villain using the cure as a weapon? Yes. Ah, well, did they have an end sequence with Colossus rising from somewhere deep within the earth and roaring “I am made of rage” before slamming said villain onto the ground and finishing him with a brutal, double-fisted gorilla punch. No?

This article was first posted on January 11, 2015

"The Doc" Chad Matthews has written wrestling columns for a decade. A physician by trade, Matthews began writing about wrestling as a hobby, but it became a passion. After 30 years as a wrestling fan, "The Doc" gives an unmatched analytical perspective on pro wrestling in the modern era. His first book - The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment - was published in December 2013. Matthews lives in North Carolina with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.