MickeyComic Book Capers
TV and comic books are both visual mass media, and so it's no wonder that there's constant crossover between the two. The thinking is that what's popular in one medium will be popular in others, too. This can work if the producers are mindful of the differences and limitations of each media. There are very few producers that are that familiar with both media, which is why so many projects get translated so badly. Understanding the nature and limits of just one of the media isn't enough.
Budget is one of the biggies. Drawing a single comic panel showing a vast space armada or superpowered beings punching each other is no big deal. Presenting it realistically on the screen is a far different matter. Granted the standards of 'realistically' have changed over time (remember when Superman turned into a cartoon when flying?), but even with modern CGI tech it's difficult to match the grandeur that can so easily be drawn in the comics.
There are other realism factors here; a superhero drawn in tights can look as dashing and, well, heroic as the artist wants. A real, live man in tight spandex and a cape looks like a refugee from Mardi Gras. Dual identities in comics aren't unusual, but in the more real (or at least, more realistically appearing) world of TV identity dysphoria is a treatable condition. Like novels, comics can't merely be translated verbatim. There has to be some adjustment to the material to fit it to the new medium.
One of the more successful adaptations was the 70's The Incredible Hulk. In that show our Jolly Green Giant wasn't fighting the supervillains and aliens and giant robots we remembered from the comics; his main foe was... himself. This was actually part of the core of the Hulk concept from the very beginning. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wanted to show Bruce Banner's superpowers as a very mixed blessing. Banner's inability to control himself as the Hulk (and to a large degree his very limited ability to control when he changed) made him one of the more sympathetic superheroes.
The Incredible Hulk wasn't any special effects extravaganza (unless you counted Lou Ferrigno as a 'special effect'). What really sold the show to the audience was Bill Bixby's performance. He really made us believe that Bruce Banner was haunted by this living embodiment of his own rage, that Banner was desperate to find some way to cure or control the Hulk. And yes I know the producers renamed him "David" for no apparent reason, but the Hulk is and always will be Bruce Banner.
Around the same time producers were bringing a more literal incarnation of the Wonder Woman comics to TV. The TV series tried to stay faithful to the comic-book world of their star-spangled heroine, yet pulled back and tried to avoid the over-the-top camp that had worked for the 60's Batman show. Still the 70's Wonder Woman show outlasted the Caped Crusader- not by any deep or gripping storylines but more for the fact that Linda Carter could do far, far more for tights than Adam West ever could. This is TV, after all.
Budget is one of the biggies. Drawing a single comic panel showing a vast space armada or superpowered beings punching each other is no big deal. Presenting it realistically on the screen is a far different matter. Granted the standards of 'realistically' have changed over time (remember when Superman turned into a cartoon when flying?), but even with modern CGI tech it's difficult to match the grandeur that can so easily be drawn in the comics.
There are other realism factors here; a superhero drawn in tights can look as dashing and, well, heroic as the artist wants. A real, live man in tight spandex and a cape looks like a refugee from Mardi Gras. Dual identities in comics aren't unusual, but in the more real (or at least, more realistically appearing) world of TV identity dysphoria is a treatable condition. Like novels, comics can't merely be translated verbatim. There has to be some adjustment to the material to fit it to the new medium.
One of the more successful adaptations was the 70's The Incredible Hulk. In that show our Jolly Green Giant wasn't fighting the supervillains and aliens and giant robots we remembered from the comics; his main foe was... himself. This was actually part of the core of the Hulk concept from the very beginning. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wanted to show Bruce Banner's superpowers as a very mixed blessing. Banner's inability to control himself as the Hulk (and to a large degree his very limited ability to control when he changed) made him one of the more sympathetic superheroes.
The Incredible Hulk wasn't any special effects extravaganza (unless you counted Lou Ferrigno as a 'special effect'). What really sold the show to the audience was Bill Bixby's performance. He really made us believe that Bruce Banner was haunted by this living embodiment of his own rage, that Banner was desperate to find some way to cure or control the Hulk. And yes I know the producers renamed him "David" for no apparent reason, but the Hulk is and always will be Bruce Banner.
Around the same time producers were bringing a more literal incarnation of the Wonder Woman comics to TV. The TV series tried to stay faithful to the comic-book world of their star-spangled heroine, yet pulled back and tried to avoid the over-the-top camp that had worked for the 60's Batman show. Still the 70's Wonder Woman show outlasted the Caped Crusader- not by any deep or gripping storylines but more for the fact that Linda Carter could do far, far more for tights than Adam West ever could. This is TV, after all.
