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Super Hero Summer is upon us!

There is no shortage of capes at the multi-plex this year. Thor , Green Lantern, X-Men and Captain America all battle it out on the big screen for box office supremacy while, finally making it to the stage on Broadway, Spiderman is surprising pundits as audiences actually fill the seats of the production that  was expected to be a dismal failure.

With all of this high powered super heroics going on I am noticing that critics are having a difficult time being judicious with their opinions.  In general, reviewers seem to be struggling with characters that lack dimension, story lines that are too simplistic and imagery, action and effects that over power the contents of the story.

My favorite critiques usually end with a summation that reads something like, “Full of action and dynamic visuals, weak story and character development. Not completely terrible. If you are a pre-teen boy, you will probably love it.”

This is the heart of what I see as an identity crisis that plagues the comic industry and nearly every franchise that is based on super heroes.

Virtually everyone has lost sight  that the original source material for practically every  major super hero was created for children and young adults at best.

It has been a recent evolution that super hero comics and related subject matter appeal to a more adult audience. This mature audience is one that grew up with an appreciation of the nuances of the original source material and are now capable of suspending disbelief as they watch their favorite characters evolve into more mature and realistic situations and environments.

This audience is a very specific  one and I think we are finding that the average adult audiences may not have the same appreciation for the super hero characters because they are not able to make the jump from characters that they may have appreciated as children now being in these mature situations.

This is obviously something that the studios are struggling with. Who is the target market for these films? Their response seems to be everyone. The critics want it to be everyone.  But when you target everyone you have to realize that there will be a shift away from the original source material that was focused on entertaining young boys.

When my son and I get into animated discussions about the exploits of a super heroes my wife is always quick to chime in that the characters “are not real!”

WE KNOW! But that never stops our enjoyment of the fantasy and the trivia that is associated with these characters.

This is the lesson that I wish producers, critics and audiences would learn. These stories should be fun amazing adventures about colorful characters that possess a strong sense of good verses evil. That is what the original stories were about and they are beloved classics of the medium. Why should they be portrayed any differently.

Trying to make rational, believable stories with these characters is like trying to do that with Santa Claus. Most of us grown-ups know that Santa is not real but we still have a warm place in our heart for all those fantastic stories we believed about him,  his reindeer, and his elves when we were kids. We are sure quick to make sure that our children get a full dose of that same fantasy and it is a tradition that is passed on from generation to generation.

I never thought that Santa’s mythology was too different from that of most super heroes, so why can’t we  be allowed to enjoy our favorite caped crusaders the same way. With pure unadulterated amazement and a willing suspension of disbelief.

My favorite super hero  movie of all time is The INCREDIBLES just for this reason. It is great ‘old-school’ fun, action and adventure that everyone can enjoy for just what it is.

Anyone who knows me will attest that I have always been a big CAPTAIN AMERICA fan and I cannot wait for that film to hit the screen! I have been closely watching the previews and my hopes are so high because from everything I see, they have this one right on the nose.

Might I be disappointed?  Maybe.  But if they make the film anywhere close to the source material that was created by two creative giants of the Golden Age, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, it could set a new standard for how super hero comics should be adapted. My fingers are crossed!

I guess that is my biggest point. If we as comic fans can consider all those great creators from the early days of comics to be geniuses why should we be satisfied when their work is tampered with. You know what? They created that material for kids and they did a hell of a job doing it. The work was great and it still is so please give it to me full strength.

SPIDER-MAN Turn off the Dark learned that lesson the hard way. We all know the story behind the disaster that play was when it veered off into some strange mythological monstrosity. It wasn’t till it returned to the roots of the original source material that the play stood a chance. Now the audiences are coming and guess who is sitting in the seats wide-eyed with amazement and dreams of swinging from that web? Young boys who want to believe in Spider-Man and that “with great power comes great responsibility.”

How cool is that?

Please do not mistake this rant as comics are for kids!!! Comics are a medium of expression like any other medium and should be used to express any idea to any audience and I firmly believe that. There are many great adult themed comics about many different topics including super heroes and quite a few have made some great adult themed films.

This does not mean that we should no longer make comics for kids or that we can’t make super hero comics for adults. I’m just saying let’s appreciate the original source material and who it was originally created for when adapting a comic to another media and we may surprise ourself with a more successful films than we are used to.

Making Comics Because I Want To

Gerry Giovinco