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Everybody talks about how superheroes have come to dominate movies in recent years. These days, summer is spandex season, and it's only going to get more superpowered in the next few years. But the success of movies like Spider-Man 2, Iron Man and Batman Begins has had a huge effect on comic book publishers as well, making mainstream comics cooler... if not always better. Here's a list of 9 ways the superhero movie boom has changed comics.
9. Decompression. This term refers to a more "cinematic" style in comics, in which the "lens" lingers over every moment of a scene, and the action is slowed down. There are more splash pages, or single-page panels. And a sequence which might have taken half a page in the 1960s will take half an issue. Comics' fad for "decompression" in comics coincided with the first blush of superhero movie popularity in the early noughties, and it's best understood as an attempt to copy the experience of watching a movie. Comics Should Be Good criticized this trend in 2005, and held up this page from Warren Ellis' Ocean #1 as an example: 
Yes it's an entire page of a guy walking out of a building and dropping a coffee cup, which dissolves. The "decompression" boom seems to be more or less over, although most comics are still slower paced than they would have been even 15 years ago.
8. Better, and fewer, costumes. Superhero movies are often loathe to cover up the faces of A-list actors, so masks tend to go out the window. You could get righteously sloshed if you drank to every occasion where Peter Parker loses his mask in Spider-Man 2. And many superhero movies avoid the gaudy spandex in general — most notably the X-Men movies, which influenced the comics to move over to the more dignified black leather uniforms... for a few years, at least. On television, Heroes chose to explore superheroic themes without any costumes at all, and it's becoming more common to see heroes in their civvies for long stretches in comics as well.
7. More Hollywood writers.
Comic book writers used to be their own breed, many of whom had started out as assistant editors at the big comic-book publishers before "graduating" to writing. But these days, you're just as likely to see a revolving door between Hollywood and comics, with writers like Jeph Loeb, James Robinson and Brian K. Vaughn working in both comics and TV/movies. And more slumming Hollywood writers, starting with comics buff Kevin Smith, have ventured into writing comics in their spare time — which has led to horrendous delays between issues.
6. Back to basics. If you liked Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie, and you wanted to read comics about that character, you might pick up a Spider-Man comic — only to read about a married high-school teacher who's some kind of mystical spider-totem and wears exo-armor. And goes around saying things like, "I AM THE SPIDER!!". 
(First J.M. DeMatteis, then J.M. Straczynski, explored the "spiritual"/mystical side of Spider-Man, adding a lot of baggage.) So Marvel started putting out Ultimate Spider-Man and other Ultimate titles, which retell the origins of their classic heroes. And as writer Mark Millar has pointed out, the Ultimate version of Tony Stark ended up being a huge influence on the new Iron Man movie. And of course, every now and then there's a huge effort to go back to basics in regular continuity, like in Spider-Man's "One More Day" storyline — which erased Spidey's marriage, his exo-skeleton, his unmasking and a ton of other baggage.
5. Reconstruction. In the 1980s, the watchword in comics was "deconstruction," meaning that writers like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Frank Miller were dismantling comics characters and critiquing them through works like Watchmen. In the 1990s, there was a wave of nostalgia and comics creators paid tribute to the innocence classic comics — which Moore creating the "1963" series of comics that were supposed to look like they'd been published in 1963, and later the "America's Best" comics. But it wasn't until superhero movies started to take off that the trend of "reconstruction" went mainstream, and superhero comics made a concerted effort to build up their heroic characters instead of taking them apart. Take Batman, whose spine got smushed in the early 1990s and then spent the rest of the decade mired in angst and self-doubt. Grant Morrison and other writers swung the pendulum the opposite way and started turning him into an almost infallible (well, except for that "Brother Eye" business) Nietzschean demigod.
4. The movie pitch in graphic novel form. This is one way that the rise of comic-book movies didn't necessarily make comics better — comics publishers put out a lot of graphic novels that were obviously only aimed at generating new characters and ideas that could result in a movie deal. In the worst cases, the graphic novels in question didn't have much to say besides, "Here's a cool concept and some kick-ass characters. Can't you just see Brad Pitt playing this guy?"
3. (Somewhat) more realistic art. In the 1990s, the trends in "mainstream" comics art were running away from realism as fast as possible. Hot artists included Rob Liefeld, who could not draw the human body if you put a gun to his head, and Todd McFarlane, whose art got more and more scratchy and gothic. There was also a huge trend towards cartoony Manga-influenced artists like Humberto Ramos, whose work lacked the expressiveness and detail of real Manga art, and was often just confusing to look at. In the noughties, as superhero movies have exploded, a more photorealistic art style has taken hold in superhero comics. This hasn't always been a good thing, as artists like Greg Horn apparently take photos from porn magazines and trace over them to create female characters. But it's an improvement over the bug-in-a-shitstorm art styles of the 1990s.
2. Every time, it's personal. One of the defining characteristics of superhero movies is that they take place in a small world. The villain of a superhero movie is usually someone the hero knows personally. Often, the villain plays a part in the hero's origin — think Batman Begins, where ubervillain Ra's Al Ghul trains Batman to be a super-ninja. This trend has carried over to superhero comics, where newer villains are more likely to have a personal issue with the hero. Like new-ish Bat-villain Hush, who turned out to be a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne's.
1. Villain stew. In superhero comics of the 1990s and earlier, each storyline would usually feature one villain at a time. Sometimes villains would team up, and they would have to come up with a cool name for their joint venture. Like the Sinister Six. Or the Superman Revenge Squad. Villains couldn't just have an ad-hoc team-up. And you would seldom have villains just randomly running around in the same storyline, each with their own agendas. But movies, starting with Batman Returns, regularly featured two or more villains per movie, just on a "more is better" theory. And comics started to follow suit, until every Daredevil villain, from the Owl to the Kingpin, would put in an appearance in the same story arc. Instead of getting defeated and then disappearing for a few months, the villains just hang around and keep getting in each other's hair.
Comments
And so comics once again change with the times. And this article (or one like it) will be published in whatever form the Internet is in, in 20 more years, bemoaning all the things that are now cool.
Is it 9 ways because this is io9? Because #4 doesn't really seem to fit, #9 is iffy, and #7 seems to defy the whole purpose of the list with its ending sentence. But maybe I'm just reconstructing the decompression of the Nietzschean demigodness of lists in general.
Can anyone else imagine Wolverine's next frame being him saying "Smells like sex in here"?
Villian stew isn't really an improvement. My biggest issue with Spiderman 3 was there were too many bad guys.
Jesus. Another incredibly lame, utterly illogical IO9 list/post.
You shouldn't waste an entire page on a guy leaving a building and dropping a cup.
Four colors is the point, hence the costumes. Everyone in black leather is dull.
Writing a screenplay is not writing a stage play is not writing a book is not writing a TV show. Just because you're good at one doesn't make you good at another and the incredible failure of so many outside writers in comics pretty much proves this.
Back to basics? How about tossing aside years of development you've invested yourself in?
If you've read DC Comics over the last few years you'll see there's a notorious lack of heroism given the rampant rape and murder by its super-villains who literally walk away from near genocide.
Realistic art only makes costumes look stupid, but I guess if you've stuck everyone in black leather to begin with, that's okay.
Shoehorning in a childhood friend no one has ever heard of before to create a tie with a villain is hardly groundbreaking or innovative and last I heard Batman helped create The Joker 70 years ago and Captain America was supposed to be a counterpoint to the Red Skull.
Hollywood created more than one villain? That's funny because I recall Spider-man dealing with the mysterious Green Goblin while still fighting other supervillains.
Man, you almost topped "Adaptation is a science fiction movie" here.
@danwaterhouse: ... if not always better. Here's a list of 9 ways the superhero movie boom has changed comics.
The headline is misleading. I took this as a list of ways movies have changed comics, period.
@B: That was your biggest issue? Mine was that Venom turned Peter Parker emo rather than evil. Dance your cares away Peter...slick that hair down to cover one eye. Just like in the comics.
ONE MORE DAY was definitely a step in wrong direction.
Jeph Loeb's writing has also been getting worse since he's gone Hollywood.
@Log1c: as a matter of fact that's almost exactly what he implies. Although the actual quote is "It's about time"
@BadThingUS: You shouldn't waste an entire page...
...four colors is the point...
Why not?
Also, why?
@Bluecell: I liked that part, because emo is evil.
@BadThingUS: I don't have a problem with this post, but I would like to see more of a discussion of the cross-pollination between movie and comic storytelling techniques. That would be more interesting to me. For instance, in 24 Hour Party People, the main character, Tony Wilson, shows how an early Sex Pistols performance in Manchester was a touchstone in the careers of musicians, and how everyone at that show ended up becoming famous. This kind of approach I'm sure has been done in comics many times, and relates to Charlie's #2 hypothesis.
@braak: I shouldn't have to explain this to an M. Night Shyamalan fan because he was actually correct at the beginning of Unbreakable. The exaggerations and colors of comics have meaning. Consciously or not, in the hands of the talented, the capes, the hoods the collars and the colors all communicate aspects of characters good and bad. In film it's why you spend millions on wardrobe, because it's telling a story visually too. Everyone in black leather doesn't do this.
And Keith Giffen said it best: you should be able to read a comic in the time it takes you to sit on the toilet. Any faster than that and you've been ripped off by a pretentious twat with dreams of movie grandeur. You want to spend $3-5 on a comic where almost nothing happens because it seems "cinematic" go right ahead. I'd rather be told a complete story. Steranko could be cinematic and still get the job done and Jack Kirby didn't need to do this crap at all.
@monkity: Discussion is fine, but the title is incorrect (it should be "How Superhero Movies Have Changed Comics") and most of it is flat out wrong. I swear they don't think these things out before they post. Someone who actually knows comics should have done this.
Comic=soap operas for kids.
(Selling crap and keep it flowing...oh how that Xray-glasses ad had me!)
BTW, Marvel's ride is that they got wise to form their own production studios. They have the rights now and will re-deliver the content. No more Schumacher crap...
@BadThingUS: Wow, you must have had extra cranky sauce this morning. The original headline for this post was "9 Ways Superhero Movies Are Changing Comics," but we decided at the last minute to change it. Because some of the changes we're talking about here definitely are making comics better, even if that's not true in all cases. Anyway, if the only counter-arguments you can make are to insult us, that's not going to help your credibility very much.
@BadThingUS: Yeah, I see where you're coming from. We have debates about this in the theater all the time.
The question isn't really, "Do the exaggerated costumes, colors, and breakneck pacing have meaning?" So much as, "Is that meaning the only thing comic books are capable of conveying?"
Obviously, the medium is going to be suited to one thing or another, but I'm not sure that, given the right circumstances, comic books fail when they attempt to reproduce a more measured pace or a muted colored scheme.
That said, I thought the pacing of Ocean was shit--I wanted to shoot myself in the face waiting for that to come out issue by issue. I wasn't necessarily talking about Ocean in particular so much as I was talking about comics in general.
@BadThingUS: You shouldn't waste a page. But is that a waste? They use four panels to do a lot of setting description. I mean, a big chunk is generic "it's the future", but the first three panels cram in a ton of detail about what the future is like. The final panel turns the previous three into a mini-narrative by adding a conclusion and it illustrates more about the future.
I'm a big fan of decompression, for exactly that reason. Cut down on expository text, and let the art do the explaining. Each panel should be important, but you've got a lot of space to work with.
Now, I do agree- I like colorful costumes. Even when the characters aren't in a tights-n-spandex outfit, we want lots of distinctive colors.
Oh, full disclosure- I don't read monthlies. I never have.
@Log1c: LMAO, good one!
@BadThingUS: Waste? Dude it's a bunch of html code...
The only comics I ever wanted to see made into a movie - and only as an animated films - are the ones that will never *be* made into movies because the authors won't: Maus and Elfquest. They were pretty much the original "graphic novels" and are still the best.
@Charlie Jane Anders: "Cranky sauce" indeed. Thanks for saving me the time of taking that one on. People need to get over the idea that if they don't agree with something it's bad, and the author should be insulted. Good post.
i just want to say that one spider-man panel you have up there i specifically remember as the LAST thing i read in comics (before getting back in to them in college years later).
i just remember reading that "I AM THE SPIDER" thing and thinking "...huh?"
@Charlie Jane Anders: Thanks for changing the title. It makes sense to me now.
@jermom: It's funny--it sounds an awful like that episode of Batman the Animated Series, when he's been gassed with the fear gas, and goes through that re-affirmation sequence.
"I am vengeance. I am the night. I am...BATMAN!"
9. It all depends on what you're decompressing. Some scenes are best told in one image, sometimes two pages. The image Comics should be Good used is an example of decompressing the wrong moment. That "story" could have been told in two panels, three tops. But then again Warren Ellis does whatever he wants and no one says no -- Has anyone read "Crooked Little Vein???" Ugh.
8. Certain characters are better out of costume, or with a singular uniform, ie. X-Men, but this doesn't translate to character like Superman, who is identified by his costume. Heroes is a "realistic" portrayal of world with superheroes... well "realistic" in the sense that NONE of it is plausible.
7. Ulitmate Hulk vs. Wolverine anyone? But hey, Joss was on time with Astonishing.
6. Or we get Ultimate/All-Star versions.
5. There seems to be a weird balance now between re and deconstruction.
4. I've seen this first hand.
3. Don't get me started on Liefeld.
2. I thought Hush was Jason Todd? I'm confused. DC just makes me angry.
1. Batman Begins is the perfect example of how to have multiple villains in a story, while Spiderman 3 is an example of raping your mind.
@Log1c: Hilarious comment -- everyone in my cube farm turned to see who the cackling madman was.
@Charlie Jane Anders: "Extra Cranky Sauce" with a dash of bitter.
And the title is still wrong because the bulk of your post remains wrong. Villains and heroes have always been tied together (who did Dr. Doom go to school with? Lex Luthor went to high school where?). Multiple villains have always been a part of comics. Costumes do matter. Hollywood writers not only cause delays but ignore character history carte blanche because no one is going to correct "the star." Realistic art takes away the vital storytelling flair...on and on.
My error was my insulting tone, but these error-filled and flat out faulty hypotheses (Adaptation will never be a science fiction movie no matter how much you insist it is) continue to plague IO9. You have got to be the weakest (not to mention thin-skinned) site of all the Gawker network. How did such sensitive types get to work for Nick Denton? There's tougher stuff behind Jezebel.
I kind of like one villain versus the multiples. I think that most of these people are sociopaths who wouldn't work well together, and I think the "older style" comics brought that to a point much better. They had to make a big deal of ganging up because it WAS a big deal.
Now, everyone teams up to get the baddies, and there might be some in-fighting, but then they do it again. I suppose its just my point of view.
This hasn't always been a good thing, as artists like Greg Horn apparently take photos from porn magazines and trace over them to create female characters.
No no no no no no. Greg LAND, not Greg HORN. Greg Land is the one who traces porn magazines, Greg Horn is a respected painter (and has been for many years).
@BadThingUS: wow, I don't agree with you assesment of io9 at all. This kind of stuff is what us fanboys talk about. We live to debate this crap.
It's weird, because all your comments are from io9, so maybe you just don't have the gawker mind-set?
I'm not trying to flame or anything, but your comments here seem to be overly critical and writing in a poor manner. Thanks for your opinion though!
@Lampbane: THAT explains why Sue Richards always had a Jesse Jane vibe!
@Lampbane: I actually double checked when I wrote this article, and when you type "Greg Horn" into Google, the first thing that comes up is a bunch of porno images of superhero women. Weirdly enough, the same thing is true if you type in "Greg Land." Are there really two Gregs who do mainstream superheroine porn?
@Lampbane: But you're right... I probably did mean Greg Land.
[iagainstcomics.blogspot.com]
@BadThingUS: Adaptation is an unsung science fiction classic, as I explained in depth in the post you're referring to. Part of our mission here at io9 is to annoy cranky self-appointed gatekeepers of science fiction like yourself. But I don't get why you're bitter. Did we run over your cat or something?
@Charlie Jane Anders: Greg Horn does do very...cheesecake paintings, but with a few exceptions actually draws everything on his own. Greg Land has become notorious for tracing movie and porn images and once in awhile even other artists, and constantly reusing them. Just using Google Image Search brings up several examples of both. Here's a good example: [4thletter.net] . I also don't think realistic art is any more or less prevalent than prior to X-Men (which is the point at which comic movies really became A Big Deal). If anything, less realistic/more stylized styles are becoming more and more common with artists like Humberto Ramos, Chris Bachalo, and Mark Bagley doing work on big-name titles. Having Hollywood writers on comics has offered nothing but a bunch of delayed books.
claiming that "more hollywood writers are good" and *immediately* thereafter that "J.M. Straczynski added nonsense and baggage" is a little counterintuitive. My personal opinion is that it is indeed the hollywood writers that are fucking up comics, because they all want to be taken SO SERIOUSLY, and all come off as hacks.
My biggest fear in life is that J.J. Abrams is given the writing duties of a major book.
Don't laugh: you know it's gonna happen.
Hey - As long as we're not seeing 14 different glow in the dark or chromium covers for each big title every Wednesday; we're doing great.
I think every comic I currently read is part of a finite story. Fables, Y, Preacher a few years back, Bone, that sort. The only ones I'm reading without set end date are Buffy and The Walking Dead.
@Numerous: Actually Buffy has a set ending date. I forget, but I think they've planned it to last 60 issues. Or maybe 70? Anyway, it's all planned out.
Didn't Batman actually make the comic book seem more retarded-er?
i.e. the bat nipples(well, and a ton of other junk)
@Charlie Jane Anders: but isn't that exactly what they said with the TV show, too?
I'd normally comment more on the content of this post but...
"Noughties"??
Who the hell is calling this decade the 'noughties'? It not only sounds stupid (hahaha I see what you did there. ought as in ought-five. naughty. hahahahahanotfunny) but is really freaking pretentious. Whoever came up with that phrase needs to be beaten horribly with the 'quit trying to coin phrases you wanna be hipster jackass' stick.
As for the post, someone took a dump in @BadThingUS 's Wheaties. His first post restricts comic books and superheroes to such a narrow band of style/substance/art as to be insulting to anyone who dares break those bounds. Different != bad, just as it is != good. It needs to be judged on its own merits. Sometimes black leather is okay. Tell me, what does the X-Men spandex yellow and blue "say about the characters"? There's no deeper meaning to that. It was a style choice that worked in a four color format. Not some graduate level hidden comment on their personalities.
Oh, and Hollywood writers cause delays, but "official for real" comic book writers never do?
Yeah.
I also have a pet pig that likes to fly around town taking pictures of unicorns.
Tee hee, it's fun to watch people get angry on the internets.
Fun article. It's interesting to see how comics have been influenced, though I do have to disagree that they're necessarily cooler or better.
Victim Stew is a mixed bag.
Batman Begins is good because it's an origin (Raz Al-Ghul) followed by a Falcone / Scarecrow story followed by a Raz Al-Ghul story. There's a touch of overlap at the transitions, but they develop on their own.
Spider-Man 3 was bad because none of the storylines properly develop.
If bad guys could live together, than they aren't bad enough.