It’s a well-known rule among comic fans that adaptations to other media rarely stand up to the original. But sometimes, on very rare occasions, a new medium brings life to a story that transcends paper and ink, or improves on rough concepts with an expert second draft. What are those occasions to you?
For me, a few immediately come to mind: the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood cuts out much of the cruft from the original comic book story by Winick. The author himself has said he prefers the film version. The other is “Mogo Doesn’t Socialize,” a vignette featured about 49 minutes into the anthology film Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. It’s a nearly impossible task to live up to Alan Moore’s source material, but here, they succeeded with flying colors.
But maybe the best example is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, loosely based on the often forgotten “Batman: Year Two” storyline, elevated to what may be the greatest Batman story ever told.
A few more: the “Robin’s Reckoning” two-parter from Batman: The Animated Series is a vast improvement on Robin’s origin from DETECTIVE COMICS #38, and the Shazam! live action movie is a much-upgraded retelling of Geoff Johns’ New 52-era Shazam! feature in the back pages of JUSTICE LEAGUE.
The TAS version of the Mad Hatter is a vast improvement over the comics version. There are only about a dozen Hatter comics that I think are half decent, and only about 5 that stand up to TAS. Plus, Roddy McDowell had one of the greatest voices in Hollywood. Period. R.I.P.
As stated above- Robin’s reckoning. The comic is more interesting than good. When I read Shazam (two days ago. I have not returned it to the library yet) I rooted for the villains the whole time, The Death and Return of Superman (plus Superman Doomsday).
Very controversial here- The Dark Knight Returns Part 2.
Superman vs. The Elite
Justice League War- The movie is so bad its good making it ironically more entertaining than its superior in every way source material.
Stargirl season 1 is a more polished version of Stars and STRIPE mostly due to better visuals.
It’s not a movie, but I’d argue that the Arrowverse’s version of Crisis on Infinite Earths is overwhelmingly better. The comic does some things better (like actually bringing the heroes together, rather than just one-off cameos, or having the individual comics tie in to the main story), but is basically six rounds where the heroes kill the Anti-Monitor in splash-page assaults. That’s a good excuse for George Pérez to draw a hundred tiny bodies on a page, but not great storytelling.
The adaptation also gets rid of the goofy idea of having a bunch of characters survive the crisis, wonder how they’re going to settle into the new world when their histories don’t make sense, and…then just get eliminated, so that writers don’t need to think about the questions they just raised. There was a nod to it in the dumb idea that counterparts can’t survive on the same Earth, but that’s still better than a bunch of heroes randomly sacrificing their lives or moving to cosmic solitary confinement.
While Naomi could be league better than what the show was able to highlight about her powers and origin. The biggest improvement that made it better story was how they made the people in her life, family and friends more involved into the narrative, which I felt like the comics fail to do.
In the comics, despite the set-up they had in showcasing her friendships, the new information about her family secret history, it literally just just goes from her adventure into Young Justice than again in Action Comics with no break from between and it was funny in a surreal way how little the gap of time was for Naomi in the comics.
The Justice League two-parter In Blackest Night is a significant improvement over No Man Escapes the Manhunters, which is honestly kind of a mess.
I’d need to look at both versions again to be sure, but I think I like the DCAU’s For the Man Who Has Everything better than the original too. The premise makes more sense with Pre-Crisis Superman, but the dystopian elements of the dream Krypton in the original make it kind of strange to think this is coming from Clark’s subconscious. The animated version shows its darker side more subtly, I think.
Mask of the Phantasm was not based on Batman Year Two, though there are certainly some plot similarities. The studio had ordered a family-friendly movie from the Batman animated team, so their starting point would not likely be what was essentially Batman’s early period using firearms and his almost-revenge on his parents’ murderer. And when you strip that out of Year 2, the only remaining great element is the Reaper’s costume, and the movie didn’t use the Reaper’s costume.
The various animated writers made pitches for the Mask of the Phantasm plot. They went with Alan Burnett’s story. Alan Burnett had never heard of the Reaper. Since Batman: Year 2 was poorly executed and lacking in the editorial courage necessary to get it off the ground, there’s no reason to think Burnett would be aware of it compared to any other Bat story.
It would be great if someone did an animated adaptation of Batman Year Two, since in 2023, they’d have the freedom to confront the issues of Batman using a gun against his foes and how he would deal with Joe Chill
This unofficial adaptation of The Case of the Chemical Syndicate is actually pretty good, particularly considering they stick closely to the 1939 comic dialogue
