The golden age of comics in the 30's and 40's saw the creation of the superhero. The good versus evil storylines mimicked the real life events of the day. It elevated the comic book to an art form. Comic style illustration and story telling in short dialog balloons had never before or since reached those heights. Than after WW II, with the advent of TV and one evil empire ending, comic books seemed to recede back into the background of young boys play things. Their numbers never again reached the levels seen during the war and many of the characters faded away.
Over the years the comic industry tried to regain their former glory, but the age of the superhero was over. Yeah there was the TV cartoons, who didn't watch Superman or Batman when you were little. Some of you like me, may have even watched the Marvel Superhero Show that had short segments of many of the Marvel characters (check them out in the You Tube video), but they were campy and never appealed to an audience beyond young boys. The Superman movies with Christopher Reeves market a turning point on the return of the superhero and the Batman movies were very successful. But beyond those two, there were many flops.
With better technology and better story lines, Spiderman, Iron Man and now the latest, The Incredible Hulk have brought comic book superheroes from the page to the screen in a big way. I know that I was not a big fan of the Iron Man movie, but seeing Tony Stark come in at the end of the Hulk movie did get even me excited by the possibilities. Also seeing the Hulk and Iron Man, I began to see that these movies are not aimed at adolescent boys with stories that I am used to from comic books and TV shows. These are movies aimed at adults with adult storylines. The technology is great, the heroes are played by big stars (I hear Brad Pitt is playing Thor) rather than unknowns and the productions are first class.
Besides the movies already out, Thor, Captain America, and Namor, the submariner are all headed for the big screen. Once each of these and more have their movie debuts, the subsequent combinations and sequels are almost infinite. This could be the biggest movie franchise of all time and make the original comic book owners more money then they ever dreamed of! In the meantime, I am excited to see many of my boyhood heroes get this new big screen treatment!
