To Infinity… and Beyond!

No, this article isn’t going to be about beloved Disney characters… err kind-a-sorta not (Disney owns Marvel).  No, I am not going to spoil Marvel’s summer/fall event, Infinity.  Instead, I am going to talk about the how superhero movies are now influencing comic books as opposed to the other way around.  Let’s get the DeLorean up to 88mph and go back to 2008 when Marvel Studios released Iron Man to the masses.  

By all accounts, at least financially, Iron Man was a smashing success, and since that time we’ve all enjoyed (at least I have) cinematic goodness two-to-three times a year.  The movies have been so successful; they have begun influencing the direction of the comics as opposed to the historical trend of the comics providing the framework for the movies.

Unless you’re under the age of ten, you know why this change is happening.  It’s simple, comic publishers are businesses, and most businesses need to make money.  If you’re reading this article then you know that The Avengers made a boat-load of money.  What you might not know is that in order for Marvel Comics to make 1% of what The Avengers made, they would have to sell over 3.2 million comics over the course of the year at a cover-price of $3.99 a piece and collect every penny (they don’t).

Obviously, the movies are making the balance sheet look nice, but this article isn’t meant to be Accounting 101; it is simply illustrating a truth that we all claim to realize.  So why do so many die-hard comic fans express trepidation about the influence the superhero movies have on comics?

Personally, I think fans are mostly upset about the visual changes that have occurred.  No one thought the traditional Captain America uniform would flesh-out well on-screen.  However, it’s been working in the comics since the 40’s, so why change it?  It’s most likely Marvels way of assimilating people who’ve seen the movie and now have interest in the comics.  Some fans claim Marvel doesn’t care about the die-hard fans.  I believe Marvel understands their die-hard fans.  For all the complaining I’ve heard, I don’t know one person who has just completely walked away from comics because of the influence from superhero movies.

The second biggest gripe of fans seems to be how often a character from the movies appears in the comics.  For instance, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Spider-Man seemingly appear in nearly every Marvel comic book.  To me, this isn’t something that is new, as both DC and Marvel have put their most popular characters in multiple comic books long before superhero movies (that were worth watching) came along.

So here we are in the middle of Marvel’s Infinity, a story that features Thanos.  At this point, everyone knows that he was in the end-credits scene of The Avengers.  I think most of us hope that he’ll be in Guardians of the Galaxy so we have more of an incentive to go see it.  But try and ask yourself, would you really think any different of this event had Thanos not been in that scene?  Is there another celestial villain you would rather have Hickman include for a story like this?

In the end, I am not in love with all the visual changes that have happened in some of the comics.  However, I think the influence of superhero movies on comics have been far more beneficial than not; see Agent Coulson.  There are tons of geek and nerd sites, none better than this one of course, popping up everywhere because so many people are interested in “our world” that weren’t five years ago.  If you’re a fan of comics then you probably were complaining about something in your books before superhero movies were influencing them.  But, I bet that something wasn’t helping to generate more cool merchandise to waste money on, or giving you a reason to summon the courage so you can ask out the cute Gamestop chick to Thor:  The Dark World a month from now.