The Silver Surfer in his computer-generated version is now a Hollywood star thanks to the second Fantastic Four movie.Which is fitting, since he did get his start as a villain going up against the Fantastic Four:
But he was a popular character, so he really made the rounds:
Spider-Woman hasn't made the big screen yet, at least not that I'm aware. But give her time.There was a 1998 TV movie version of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, though, with David Hasselhoff in the title role.
Iron Man is on his way to the movies, scheduled for next year.For characters like Iron Man, the Human Torch or the Silver Surfer, doing a film version with live actors is hard to imagine prior to computer-generated animation.
Iron Man has a super-duper metal suit that protects him from pretty much anything the bad guys can throw at him. He flies, too. In his civilian identity, he's a billionaire war profiteer, or something like that.
Elektra was immortalized by her screen portrayals in Daredevil and Elektra by Jennifer Garner of Alias, also one of my favorite actresses. Yeah, I know the Elektra solo film wasn't too popular, but who cares? I mean, if Jennifer Garner is on the screen during the movie, that fact alone makes it watchable.But the character is also an intriguing one, and Garner's athletic ability (she claims to do her own stunts) as well as her acting talents, as shown by her multiple-personality performances as Sydney Bristow in Alias make her a great choice to play the character.
Elektra was originally introduced as a character in the Daredevil comics. The backstory here is that Daredevil was a second-rank Marvel character, until the now-legendary Frank Miller (artist for 300, another comic recently made into a movie) took over writing and drawing the series. He turned Daredevil from another goody-two-shoes super-hero who swung around off ledges and beat up bad guy into a dark, deeply troubled, brooding, existential heavy.
Part of the heaviosity of the Frank Miller Daredevil was that he fell in love with Elektra, a professional ninja assassin. Ben Affleck's Daredevil in the film reflects the dark Frank Miller version of the character.
Miller also returned Batman to his vigilante roots in 1986 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns three-book series. He made Gothan City into a futuristic dystopia which drives a middle-aged Bruce Wayne back into his bat-costume. But he wasn't the nicey-nice Adam West version, either.
While saving some innocents from a bad guy with an automatic weapon, we see Miller's Batman thinking, "There are seven working defenses from this position. Three of them disarm with minimal contact. Three of them kill. The other..."
Holy Dirty Harry, Batman! You get the idea. Frank Miller's heroes are dark, tormented, ambiguous. At least Daredevil, Batman and Elektra come out that way in his treatment of them.
Wolverine is also a movie star thanks to Hugh Jackman's sympathetic portrayal of the hot-headed mutant in the three X-Men movies.Wolverine is an exception among the ten characters on this stamp release in that the comic book cover they pair with his image is one that doesn't even include his character.
Speaking of the X-Men movies, one of the things that made those films good was having Patrick Stewart as the grave and serious Dr. Xavier. He provided a kind of dramatic anchor for the films that made it easier to go with the flow on the fantastic things that were happening on screen.
Also, I just saw in the news that one of the X-Men film veterans, Anna Paquin, who portrayed Rogue (who was from Meridian, Mississippi in the film version), is one of the top candidates for the lead role in an upcoming Wonder Woman movie.
Lynda Carter's version of Wonder Woman will be hard to top. But I'm rooting for Anna Paquin to get the part.Tags: anna paquin, elektra, iron man, jennifer garner, silver surfer, spider-woman, super heroes stamps, wolverine
No comments:
Post a Comment