10 Comic Books for the Small Screen

Back to the fight at the end of The Avengers, there was some pretty hefty damage done to The Big Apple. You can’t have epic battles with space aliens without some shit getting broken along the way. The question is who cleans up that mess? Enter Damage Control. A company owned by none other than genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist Tony Stark, whose main purpose is to clean up the mess.

This show basically writes itself. I can see why this has already been pitch as a sitcom. It would do perfectly as a thirty minute sitcom on NBC. Single camera, documentary style, sounds familiar right? This is The Office of the comic book world. It’s not like you have to bring in all these big name characters. Do some name dropping, do a quick cameo to boost ratings. This really is The Office of the Marvel universe. With and endless amount of material and a very interesting background story surrounding Mr. Stark and his business partner how can this show fail. Give me a camera and a couple of construction sites and watch the Emmys pour in.

Now the next series would be right at home on a network such as Syfy or the CW. The Runaways is the perfect story to aim at teenagers and young adults. Basically a group of teenagers discover that their parents are a group of super-villains, called The Pride, so they run away, stealing all kinds of crazy stuff from their folks and band together. On this journey for our young heroes leads them to discover their families’ heritage and that they have abilities of their own. They use these new abilities to fight off the evil parents and anyone who tried to take their place.

This story has everything and I do mean everything; a time traveling dinosaur, witchcraft, vampires. Sounds exciting right? One aspect of this group that I think is really important for its success is that it’s female driven. Most super hero groups tend to have more male members, not The Runaways its girl power here, outnumbering the guys four to two. It’s an issue that has been buzzing around the internet recently, that there is a lack of strong female superheroes. Here is the perfect opportunity to put the female superhero there.

Marvel has already started the process of bringing this group to the big screen. A few years ago they hired Iron Man 3 writer, Drew Pearce to pen the script for The Runaways. He did, turned it into Marvel, but it was pushed to the side to make room for The Avengers. I guess it would be hard for another superhero group to compete with The Avengers when the characters are already so well established. This could be a blessing in disguise for Marvel. Instead of cramming everything into a two hour movie spread it out. There are three good seasons of source material to take from. Speaking of source material, Joss Whedon worked on this series. We know everything he touches is gold.

Now here is one that is a takes a step back from the capes and the cowls, DMZ takes a political view of the world that could be. Set during a second American civil war, the island of Manhattan is now a demilitarized zone, caught between the United States of America and secessionist “Free States”. The story picks up five years into the war and follows reporter Matty Smith. Matty finds himself caught in Manhattan during this struggle. He quickly discovers that what he’s heard about the area may not be true at all. He begins reporting on the area and growing closer to the citizens of Manhattan Island.

While this may be a completely different then every other comic on this list, it may be the most important to get on TV. Let’s face it shows that are based in reality tend to be the most powerful. When these books came out they were getting rave reviews for the realism they provided. It picks plot points straight out the headlines and gives you a scary sense that this could really happen. Maybe the youth of today need a story like this. If this does start to happen you’ll have to question yourself… “What side should I choose?”

From one reporter to another, Vic Sage as The Question is a must for television. The hard hit investigative reporter, Sage, and his alter ego The Question, see the world in black and white. Using his alter ego, Sage tracks down the answer he can’t get as a reporter. This guy is a complete bad ass. Knocking some thugs down into a sewer where they could be swept away and drown, he doesn’t help them he just called the cops to let them know where they were. Who doesn’t want to see that on television? We need a hero who is only after the truth. Given the current state of our media, we need a reporter who tells the truth. I’m looking at you Brian Williams.

There is so much that can be done with this show. Start Sage off in Arrow tracking down all the corruption in Starling City. Starling City seems to be a perfect place for corruption to exist; Sage is the type of character to seek out the truth in that world and bring it to a crashing halt. I can see there would be a problem with so many masked vigilantes running around the show right now. It would be hard to do a spin off when we aren’t even sure if Atom is going to make it out there on his own. New idea, do a spin off from The Flash. Using a conspiracy theory angle, that was so brilliantly shown in Justice League Unlimited, have The Question become obsessed with metahumans. Have him seek out the truth about the connection between the particle accelerator and the emergence of metahumans. Once he’s figure it out spin him off to do his own thing. Even better idea, now that Gotham is proving that a detective style show can stand on its own, go back to the roots of The Question. The world is already set up for him there; he once was the protector of Gotham in Batman’s absence, his protégé, Renee Montoya, is already an established character there. There are so many directions to take this character.

Moving out the reality based world and into the cosmos, The Lantern Corps is perfect for another type of TV programming; the miniseries. People couldn’t get enough of the miniseries back in the 70s and 80s. They had V, Lonesome Dove, North and South. People loved it, asked your mom about watching a young Patrick Swayze in a confederate uniform.

 HBO has tried to bring back the miniseries with the smash hits Band of Brothers and The Pacific. This is where The Lantern Corps deserves to be. Take ten or twelve episodes, use The Blackest Night and The War of Light storyline and tell this epic space tale. Did you even know that there is nine different Corps? Yes there is nine different corps, one for each color of the emotional spectrum. There’s Green Lantern Corps, Yellow Lantern Corps, a Black Lantern Corps and slew of others and they are all fighting amongst each other, it’s pretty insane. Do yourself a favor and read the series. 

Back to making this a show, this is a very complex universe with a lot of moving parts and characters. The Green Lantern movie tried its best to give us as much information as it could but it was simply too much for the average viewer to take in. Not even Ryan Reynolds could save that film, though he tried. If you can space out all that information over a set number of episodes you could fit in most of that information. The source material has a beginning, a rich history of how all this came be, and it has a definitive end. Look at Band of Brothers; it starts at boot camp, goes through the jump at Normandy all the way to end of the war. It only took ten episodes to cover a group of men’s WWII experience. There are a ton of characters in that show as well. The core group somewhat stays the same, however with war people do die, new soldiers show up. The story never focuses on just one character it’s always changing atmosphere, changing different perspectives, but they made it to the end. They made it from running up hills in Georgia all the way to a group of American soldiers playing baseball in Germany, in ten episodes. Only ten episodes, amazing, the point is it can be done. You can take all the characters, all the fights, all of the history and fit it into ten episodes, and it can be beautiful.

Come on, its Frank Castle aka The Punisher aka the most vicious mother fucker to come out of the Marvel universe. We all know the story. He’s a war veteran, family murder by the mafia, buys a black shirt with a scary skull on it, has a ton of guns and just starts mowing down mafia members. It’s a classic story. Look up anti-hero and you’ll see a picture of Michael Corleone, Walter White, and Frank Castle. He does some many vicious things, kills so many people, but he does it for all the right reasons. That’s why we love this guy.  

 This is pure TV gold right here, but I can see there being some issues bringing it to air. It would be hard to find a network to air it. HBO turned down The Walking Dead, due to its violence but picked up a show where people are castrated and beheaded every week (we thank you so much for that too). If you did get The Punisher on air you’d have politicians coming out of the woodwork, with claims that violent television programs and video games are corrupting our youth. To that I say… No. It’s not violent television or video games it’s bad parenting and a lack of discipline that lead to bad kids. Frank Castle never got the chance to make bad parenting choices; his son was taken from him to soon. Now he service justice to those who have spent their lives making bad choice, a stern warning to the rest of us to stay on the straight and narrow path. Even with all of these things stopping this from becoming a show there is light at the end of the tunnel. Marvel has order a few new shows to air on Netflix. Netflix, the place where shows and b-movies went to die, but they’ve thrived and live on, getting stronger and stronger with each viewing. How is this good for The Punisher? Netflix doesn’t have to abide to the same standards that regular networks do. There is no limit on language; they can up the violence if they want to. You don’t have to pay extra on a cable bill just so you can have a channel to see some full frontal nudity. Netflix is pure broadcast heaven, the one come to save us all.

It’s hard not to notice the recent affect that vampires have had on American culture. With the success of Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and True Blood there’s an audience that wants to dwell on the lives of these blood suckers. Even as bad as the Twilight movies were they made money. Maybe it’s time for a new breed of vampires to take to the small screen. American Vampire could be that new breed. It follows the story of old west outlaw Skinner Sweet, who is part of a new vampire bloodline. He’s faster, stronger, and impervious to sunlight. Fuck yeah, a western with vampires. I could watch this with a girlfriend and not hate myself afterwards.

The great thing about adapting this for TV is that it would be cheap to do so. There are no crazy special effects that are typically needed for comic book stories. It’s a western; it’s all story and characters. You get rid of the cheesy actors, let’s face it vampires that sparkle are cheesy, how could you ever really take your job seriously. You bring in solid actors and writers like the modern western shows, Hell on Wheels and Deadwood, and you have a good start for a show. Just keep it true to the source material. It seems to be a huge problem for networks and studios, listen to the fans they are the ones that made these series so popular. The source material here is great. Stick to it and you may have something special there.

Northlanders is an interesting add to this list. It takes a look at the Viking Age lifestyle. Vikings, hell yeah, the most badass people to walk the face of the earth. Given the success of Game of Throne why not take a look at Vikings. This series has different story arcs that take us through different periods of time. With each new story we get a new protagonist and new look at the ever changing Viking lifestyle.

With each comic book series on this list, I’ve tried to relate it to a show that has already found success. It makes pitching the show that much easier. While it’s easy to relate this to Game of Thrones there are two other very successful shows to relate this, True Detective and Fargo. What do these shows have to do with Vikings? Absolutely nothing. It’s their format that makes them unique to this type of storytelling. These shows have, for the time being, shown you can jump through different periods and change characters and it’s ok. You can take a-list actors bring them in for one season and tell their story. At the end of it all, you shake hands, win Emmys, and go on to do other things. Season two comes; you keep the name of the show, bring in new actors, tell a different story, and everything is alright. The audience seems fairly ok with this. They are getting top rated acting and great storytelling. So why not do a show about Vikings, in the style of Game of Thrones, using the format of True Detective and Fargo? It would be a huge hit.

Always save the best for last. If you haven’t read Ex Machina go do it now, Amazon is just a click away. Ex Machina is the story of Mitchell Hundred, a man with the ability to communicate with machines, even levers and pulleys. With this ability Hundred becomes The Great Machine, New York’s first superhero. After stopping the second plane from hitting on 9/11, Hundred reveals his true identity, runs for Mayor and wins. Pretty cool right? Well that’s where the fun begins. Hundred now has to deal with the problems of being a politician.

Political dramas are a fun genre of shows, you never run out of material because there real world keeps throwing new ideas at you all day long. It’s easy to say that this could just follow in the footsteps of The West Wing. While it is an amazing show that it could draw a lot of inspiration from, I picture it going another way. Have you seen The Wire? Of course you have, it’s the greatest show to ever be made. During the third, fourth, and fifth season we see a young ‘Littlefinger’ climb the ranks from city councilman to mayor. On his journey he has to tiptoe through the red tape bullshit that is the modern political arena.  There you go, great inspiration for a political drama, but wait there’s more. Another aspect of storytelling that this show could use to full effect is the flashback. I know every screenwriting book and teacher out there says that flashback are cheating and don’t use them. Well duh it’s cheating, but if it’s done right it works. Arrow uses flashbacks in every episode; it worked beautifully in the first two seasons to round out the story. Still haven’t figured out where the third season’s flashbacks are taking us, but that’s a discussion for another day. The point is if you start series with Hundred’s great feat on 9/11, revealing that he was this great superhero for New York, and becoming mayor. Now you use flashbacks to show why he became The Great Machine, his exploits as this superhero, how things then are related to things happening now. There you have it, a beautifully rounded political/superhero drama.

There it is ten comic book series that deserve to be on the small screen. It’s great that movie studios and television networks are starting to look to comic books for inspiration for their next big hit. Believe it or not comic books have become our modern mythology. Superheroes began to rise during the great depression, a time our country needed something to believe in. They were there to help us fight a war,  jumping through panels to punch Hitler as many time as they could. They’ve been there to express how we feel as a people through every national tragedy and political scandal. With our every changing society, they’ve been there. Since movies and television are becoming the norm for storytelling, it’s nice to see that they are bringing these stories with them.