I didn't write this post out of spite or even Fan-Related-Anger-Kondition, which from time to time strikes us all here in the land of geeks, fanboys and other assorted nerds.

I have always been very forgiving with superhero movies. Growing up in the 70’s all we had was Spiderman, which was basically a dude being dragged by a helicopter over downtown Los Angeles (Im pretty sure it was LA, it always looked blurry but maybe that was due to the fact that my crappy TV was manufactured in some communist republic in 1953). Many of you may also recall that about the same time the Incredible Hulk tv show also began its run.

While The Incredible Hulk didn’t have all the amazing appeal of a bug-eyed lead actor, crappy webs, climbing up buildings via a camera laid on its side and a guy leaping around like a spastic crab on rooftops that were clearly nowhere near New York, it did have the mystery of why no matter what Bruce Banner was wearing, the Hulk always seemed to have purple pants on.

So I waited for a “real” superhero movie to come out. And that same year our prayers were answered. We got the still-awesome Superman by Richard Donner. A film that still works today and holds a special place in my heart. Of course, one can never say the same about Superman IV…but that’s a whole other column all its own.

So… onward into the 80’s and 90’s (don’t be afraid)… the nascent phase of comic book movies was upon us. There were some good attempts (The Rocketeer, Superman II, the excellent Alex Proyas film The Crow and of course the game-changing Tim Burton-directed Batman…however there were quite a few misfires…

...some turds will never become jewels no matter how long you polish them.

And to that end, we had Swamp Thing, Supergirl, Superman III and the aforementioned Superman IV, The Punisher and of course the cinematic genius that is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze and of course Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Mystery of its Box Office Appeal.

Ok, I made the last one up but it does post a legitimate question. And we’ll get to that later.

As a side note Marvel did have a hand, however small in releasing (though not theatrically or even on video) versions of Captain America, Nick Fury: Agent of Shield (with the Hoff!) and Roger Corman’s craptacular version of the Fantastic Four. Barely produced, poorly acted and missing much of what can make comics great, one can only find these pieces of dreck on bootleg videos and DVD’s usually sold by people of questionable hygiene at comic book conventions throughout this great land.

Other points of interest are when Joel “Bat Nipples” Schumacher almost completely destroyed the Batman franchise with a film so badly, edited, so poorly assembled that it became OK for the actors to make fun of it in interviews.

On the upside. We ended the decade with the start of the Blade Trilogy which proved that a solid script by someone who understood the characters could create an enjoyable, fun, well-written story for about a zillion dollars less than what Schumacher had spent to film that whole “roller-skating warriors in the disco from hell” scene in Batman & Robin.

So now we get to the new millennium…now is when things start to get really good. Now is when movie producers and directors start to realize that not only is there a buttload of movies, high-grossing movies that can be made from comic properties but on top of that they have a chance to work with an already established market…a set of rabid lunatics (myself included) who have been salivating over the idea of big money being spent on their favorite characters.

So the comic movie boom really starts in earnest. It gets so out of hand that eventually fanboys will actually utter a sentence they never thought they would…”how many damn comic book movies can you make in one year”?

So starting in 2000 we have the X-Men. To this day I remember staying late at work so I could be alone and watch the (then) hi-res version of the trailer. I got such a thrill seeing Wolverine snap out his claws. I couldn’t believe this was going to be a movie.

When I look back now…it seems the milestones for me were:

1. Superman (Christopher Reeve)

2. Batman (Michael Keaton)

3. The X-Men

Now I cant say I love all the films in this genre. Some work very well, others not so much. Some films like Unbreakable are great takes on the superhero tropes without having the story lead into a much more fantastical realm. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight follow this in that there are no outlandish superheroics as we know them from characters like Superman, Ghost Rider or Green Lantern.

But I do get excited every time they announce a new one and I always go because even when they are bad, they still seem good because I remember when I had no super hero movies at all. Catwoman may be the sole case that disproves that axiom.

And that's definitely an upcoming post all its own.

I think I have seen every superhero film that has been made, even the strange foreign ones that find their way to the US from time to time and appear to have been written, cast, filmed and edited on budgets of less than what I spend on groceries per year. Generally I’m able to find things I like in almost all of them. As in food, books, music, art and really just about everything…taste is subjective.

To that end, I’ve been reasonably happy with what I have seen and I feel that way, as I said, because I went through a period in my life where the best superhero movies were separated by almost 10 years each. That seems so strange now as I write this is 2011 when the 3 months between May and July alone will see the releases of: Thor, Captain America, X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern.

2012 will have Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider Man and The Dark Knight Rises

Now it’s not that I’m without criticism of the films. Some examples:

I don’t think Tim Story really “got the Fantastic Four”. The humor part was partially there especially in the shaving cream scene between Johnny and Ben. I don’t think Jessica Alba was right for Sue Storm but I did think the bridge scene was done well, I thought Alicia was well cast and the battle with Doc Doom is pretty good but is it the best adaptation of the comic? I say yes but only because there isn’t anything to really compare it to.

Having said that Fantastic Four 2 gets a lot of stuff right and Im not one of those people who thought that Galactus was screwed up at the end. I don’t think the general public was going to understand Galactus as this 80-story tall guy. Don’t get me wrong, it would have cool to see him assembling the planet destroying machinery on the FF building in midtown Manhattan but it wouldn’t have had the drama of this machine cloud that was swallowing whole planets whole. I think it was a necessary change. I thought the Silver Surfer was perfect, the combination of Doug Jones’ body work and Laurence Fishburne’s voice really sold it.

So again, my love for the genre allows me to take the good with the bad.

Elektra gets a lot of flak for being a bad film but I don’t think it is. It certainly isn’t Jennifer Garner’s fault in any case. She does a fine job with the character and Im not just saying that because I would murder 1,000 people just for the chance to smell her hair. The bad guys were watered down (as was the same case in the first Ghost Rider film) versions of their comic counterparts so there is less tension and drama. The excision of her scene with Matt Murdock also was a bad call.

I loved X2: X-Men United and Spiderman 2 but had problems with both their follow ups.

X3: The Last Stand’s biggest flaw is in the battle on Alcatraz at the end of the film. Here is an opportunity missed. A chance to show off the zillion different mutants that have been created over the years and instead we get guys with lizard skin and what looks like regular guys carrying baseball bats. On the other hand I really loved the fight between Jean Grey and Logan and I thought if anything Famke Janssen did a great interpretation of the Jean Grey - Phoenix manifestation.

Spiderman 3: The film is OK, the biggest problem, I think we can all agree is trying to fit too many villains into the film for Peter to contend with. Venom is most interesting when we see Topher Grace’s acting not the CGI creature. Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman is also well-done. Also, while I have heard many opinions on this, the scene in the club where Peter plays piano (?) and dances brought the film to a screeching halt for me. After that its takes some time to get back on track as far as I'm concerned. It was and remains a huge disconnect for me.

Iron Man and Iron Man 2 both work very well for me. Origin story followed up by Chapter 2 of his story. I think they play well together and I think Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke are genius casting decisions.

I love Daredevil and it may be the first time in my experience where (other than Blade Runner) where a Directors Cut makes a huge difference in the film. I think its well acted, paced correctly and a good watch in general. I have to be honest, I don’t listen to anyone’s critique of that film if it starts with “I hate Ben Affleck”. If your opinion is utterly predicated on an actor you don’t like, you most likely are not giving the film a fair shake.

Watchmen is probably another post all on its own. I found it to be epic (in the real sense of the word). It was an audacious undertaking for Zack Snyder and the cast but I think they got it right despite making changes to the crisis point of the film. It works on its own and I think that’s one of the things all directors fight against when they work in this genre.

You’re trying to make all these diehard fans happy, along with the regular fans and on top of that trying to make a good film that will appeal to the average person who has no knowledge at all about the source material.

It’s not an easy thing. It is in fact the biggest hurdle that Watchmen itself faced and I’m still not sure they completely cleared it.

I like both Hulk films for different reasons. Clearly Ang Lee was an interesting choice for the first and I appreciate the more cerebral take on the Green Goliath especially in light of the fact that a great deal of that character deals with the mental battle between the two parts of Bruce Banner. However most people wanted to see the Hulk smashing things and they certainly (yours truly included) were not sated by the whole “Hulk Poodle” scene. The CGI is amazing in that you only need take a look at the scene where the Hulk bursts out of the base in the desert, you could swear it was a real person out there.

The Incredible Hulk is a much more fun film, the battles are bigger and the Abomination while not exactly like his comic counterpart was well done, his CGI was freaky and scary just as it should be and Tim Roth is great.

I think both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are amazing films. I would go so far as to say that TDK is a flawless film in its acting (before this film I didn’t think I would like another take on the Joker…I was wrong) and execution. Just a fantastic film. It is of course closer to an urban terrorist drama than it is to a superhero movie but I think the Batman character is well-lent to that particular trope. I don’t know if it would work with other comic book characters.

I freaking love Superman Returns. I think Brandon Routh nailed that part and I think Bryan Singer did a magnificent job with that film. Having said that, I think the film works better if you see it for what it really is, which is almost a retelling of the original Donner Superman story, a film that attempts to wipe away the stench of Superman II and IV. There is no new ground tread here. We get basically a more updated, more realistic (and some might say more Christ-like) Superman than before.

To this day the scene where he falls from the sky, hits the park and the trees blow back from the force is one of the best things I’ve ever seen filmed.

And on the other hand, there are films I think missed the mark completely and aren’t really viewable more than once. Some examples are Wanted, which was a great comic series but ended up as a watered down vehicle to show off how bad-ass Angelina Jolie can be, The Surrogates, The Punisher and The Punisher: War Zone, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (more on that later), Judge Dredd,, Jonah Hex and a few others.

The problem suffered by these films is generally the same. Somewhere along the line in development, the goal of using the characters and their history gets sidelined by someone who doesn’t really understand the source material or is listening to a producer who knows nothing about comics or they make changes to make things “palatable” to the general movie-going audience.

I realize that this is a generalization, that the vast majority of people involved in these adaptations are working to create the best film to satisfy the largest audience hopefully without sacrificing the story or its characters so everyone can make a buttload of money.

On the other hand there are a huge number of idiots whose main concern is how many toy Batmobiles they can sell at Burger King when the film is in theaters. Those people, the ones who think you must trade good storytelling just to push more crappy products on an already saturated market should be slapped repeatedly about the face and neck.

And that leads to changes that piss off the diehard fans and generally make the film weaker overall. A perfect example of that was the adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now here is a comic book that should not have been made. Fans of the Alan Moore comic know that this series is best read by someone who is well-read. It helps to know some literature and history to properly understand all the references that have been woven into the stories. In fact there is a 2 volume series by author and librarian Jess Nevins (Heroes & Monsters and A Blazing World) in which he breaks the comics down page by page to explain all of the characters, locations and incidents that Moore deftly wrote into his stories.

There is that much material in each book.

I don’t mean to sound like the original comics are not accessible to everyone but the stories are so much more rich if you understand exactly what is happening as opposed to reading the stories as if they were typical superhero tales. It does work on that level but it is only a shadow of what the books really can convey.

So, the studio then waters down the very basis for these great stories in order to make it “understandable” to the typical movie-going audience. In my experience I can see why they do this. Generalization Alert! Audiences, particularly American audiences don’t like films that require them to think and they certainly don’t like films where things aren't wrapped up nicely in a clear and obvious manner.

I call it "Happy Ending Syndrome" and it has no place in most films.

It’s that very reason why so many excellent films (especially ones from abroad) rarely get the respect and accolades they should from the general film-going populace.

How’s this for dumbing it down? The character of Tom Sawyer doesn’t exist in the original comic series. Somewhere in development someone mentioned that American audiences would not want to see a film in which there were no American lead characters. Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker, Nemo, Hyde and The Invisible Man are all from other parts of the world.

So they brought on Tom Sawyer, made him a Secret Service agent (which seems very roughly based on the later books by Twain), crammed him into the film as a love interest for Mina Harker (which is also a diversion from the original stories where she and Allan Quatermain have a relationship) and then throw a bazillion dollars of CGI at us in an effort to make us believe we are being entertained by good story and dialogue.

It probably works for someone who has no idea what the source material is.

But it doesn’t work for me.

And that's my two cents.