Five Fandom Friday: Comic Book Heroes Who Need Their Own Series/Movie

The first of my scheduled 5 Fandom Friday posts! Thanks to Barb from You Fancy Me Mad for putting the prompts for June up early so I can answer them now, instead of stressing during my vacation.

Image courtesy Katelyn Jade

I have never been a huge, flailing comics geek. I've always been the kind to let the interesting stuff float to the top (or trickle down?) to me, mostly via my friends and loved ones. I guess you could say the following opinions I have are "outsider" (or, in tongue-in-cheek gamer parlance, "filthy casual"). But that won't stop me from sharing them!

5. Black Widow

Messy-ass Joss Whedon can't be involved, though. And it has to be a movie outside the current orgy of Avengers stuff because Black Widow being included in the Avengers team makes no goddamn sense. You have Iron Man, you have The Incredible Hulk, you have Thor, you have Captain America...what can Black Widow do that they can't? Or Hawkeye, for that matter?

I mean, not that I condone Marvel mysteriously dropping her from their Avengers promotion line. Obviously that's bullshit—if they put her in the movie, then they should commit 100% to her being in the movie and a part of the team—but it does indirectly point to Black Widow's true purpose in the movies. As Robot Chicken (and countless others) pointed out:

There have been other female Avengers recruits with actual powers the writers could have used, so I have no idea why the writers went with Black Widow. So it goes, I guess.

But a standalone Black Widow movie, in a world without Norse gods or freakish mutants or overpowered tech, would be awesome and I would watch the hell out of it.


4. Promethea (Promethea, Alan Moore)

Apologies to Mr. Moore, who has washed his hands of the movie industry, but Promethea is a way better story than V for Vendetta.

I get a lot of mileage out of this gif.

It might need some tight editing towards the end—lessons on the Tarot's Major Arcana or the Tree of Life are great for graphic novels but kind of tedious in movies—but I would love to see the stunning visuals and reality-bending ideas on the big screen. I'm thinking Terry Gilliam would be a good director.

If you haven't read Promethea, you are missing out. Get on that!

3. Superman (Red Son, Mark Millar)

There have been a bunch of Superman movies already, I know. But this one-shot from Mark Millar that posits an AU Superman who landed in Soviet Russia instead of the US is a great, unique reimagining that would make for interesting movie fodder. There are some things in the story that I would tweak (the Wonder Woman and Batman cameos seemed shoehorned in just for the lulz instead of contributing to the story), but overall it would be a great movie. Much more interesting than Batfleck versus Superman. (Take note, DC.)

...a lot of mileage. 

2. The Great Machine (Ex Machina, Brian K. Vaughan)

Brian K. Vaughn is the hot new name in graphic novels these days, with Saga being the new big thing. I haven't had a chance to get into it yet, but I will.

Before there was Saga, but after Vaughan had already gotten his toes wet with the highly-acclaimed Y the Last Man, there was Ex Machina. People don't talk as much about Ex Machina, though. I don't know why, so I'm going to change that here and now: Ex Machina is a great read and The Great Machine deserves a film treatment.

1. Doom Patrol (Doom Patrol, Grant Morrison)

I love the hell out of Morrison's run on Doom Patrol. I love it so much. At some point I need to sit down and reread it and talk to people about representation and mental illness but it's still the only superhero ensemble I can take seriously, probably because master storyteller and fiction bender Grant Morrison knows what he's doing better than anyone else in the business.

Anything else in this list would be better as a movie, but Doom Patrol has so many wonderful, complex characters and involved backstory that it would probably be better as a miniseries. And, so long as they had Morrison on board as an adviser or head writer, and stayed true to the original story arcs, I would watch it. No doubt at all.