road-kill-eater:

road-kill-eater:

it is weird how with books the film adaptation is always evaluated in comparison to the original text and most of the time if a film deviates too much then fans and critics get upset about it especially if it has a negative impact on the story

but movie adaptations of comics arent held to that standard at all, not even a little. and if you complain that the movies are nothing like the comics you get 394747273 mcu fans telling you comics are trash and no one wants to see a faithful adaptation of them anyways. like literally what is the point of “adapting” a comic if all youre doing is lifting the name of the characters along with a few of their powers but otherwise changing everything so its completely unrecognizable as an adaptation of a comic story. like infinity war isnt even an adaptation of the comic its just random au fanfic and thats one of the mcu films that was actually kind of based on a comic storyline most of them dont even pretend to try

a lot of people are adding comments and tags to this post saying that the timeline in marvel comics is too messy and that comics are fundamentally different than books, but the reason retcons and alternate universes exist in comics is to create a cohesive whole despite its nature as a collaborative medium. large comic universes like marvel comics are essentially more like mythology than a series of graphic novels or books, but that doesnt mean that an adaptation of greek myth would be justified in taking nothing but the names and a few traits of characters from the source material(s) and still calling itself a faithful adaptation because the source material sometimes had conflicting info and its easier to make shit up than sort it all out or even attempt to stay true to the spirit of the original stories. but there are coherent, straightforward stories in the 616, and retcons are an attempt to keep a level of consistency that fans expect 

x-men the animated series managed to adapt the original comics in a way that improved the stories for the medium without changing them to the point of being unrecognizable, in fact the show works as a great introduction to people who want to start reading the comics. and the argument that the show has an inherent advantage due to being long running doesnt really work when it comes to the mcu and their new ability to release lotr size movies. 

listen, i dont believe that random directors and screenwriters hired by marvel (apart from ryan coogler and taika waititi and their respective teams) can do any better at creating compelling superhero stories than the best writers and artists to emerge from 80 years of marvel comics, and that because those stories come from a certain medium they don’t deserve to have a faithful adaptation, and im not interested in seeing filmmakers create a frankenstein out of those stories that have remained popular for a reason despite the literal thousands of other comics.  

it’s not like they are improving upon the source material or changing it specifically to work in film format, and often the changes are done in bad faith. such as nebula’s extremely diminished role in her own story, and how she is robbed of her moment of defying thanos in favor of tony stark. it’s also no coincidence that characters like tony stark and steve rogers get to stay relatively unchanged in origin and appearance while characters like the scarlet witch and quicksilver so diverged from the comics they don’t even bother to give wanda her real powers. its also no coincidence that mcu peter parker was given a huge amount of characterization and backstory from miles morales’ comics, and attached his character so closely to tony stark that its a huge detriment to peters character. or how the vision is considered worthy of mjolnir meanwhile pietro was killed in the first movie 

or, just look at bryan singer’s adaptation of x-men to see where a complete disregard of the source material leads. he banned comics on set specifically because he didn’t want to be corrected on the wild inaccuracy and misunderstanding of every single character in those movies, to the point of straight up disrespect, especially when it comes to such an important story like the x-men. rogues backstory involving her redemption and many female characters such as mystique and carol danvers and dazzler is disregarded in favor of a heterosexual romance and friendship with logan and then being terrorized by magneto. magneto himself is sabotaged in every way possible in the original trilogy, and then the remains are set on fire in the reboots. 

by all means try to actually improve on the source material by changing the outfits of the female characters and divesting them from the misogynistic writing of many comic creators, or getting rid of the vision completely, or adding more characters of color/giving more focus to those that already exist, or adding more lgbt characters, or treating characters with disabilities and mental disorders with respect and giving them actual agency. spiderverse diverged from the original comics greatly, but the creation of the film was largely informed by comic humor, pacing, aesthetics, and storytelling style unique to the medium, plus they were unable to use more material from the comic due to the mcu stealing it for peter.