Film Strips

Film Strips: Batman (1989)

So far in the Film Strips series, it's fair to say that the comics we've looked at have supported the widely-held notion that comic strip adaptations of superhero movies are largely pointless and low-quality endeavours that work neither as good versions of the movie story nor as good comics in their own right. Every so often, however, it's possible for a comics adaptation to be a legitimately good piece of work - and such is the case with DC's Batman adaptation of 1989.

Film Strips: X-Men - The Movie Special

Following the X-Men movie adaptation we looked at a little while ago, Marvel's first big movie/comic cross-promotion ever also produced a number of tie-ins and specials set in the X-Men movieverse. Today, we're looking at one particular oddity: a full-length one-shot comic called "X-Men: The Movie Special" which was made available with the starter pack for the short-lived (and I mean REALLY short-lived) X-Men Collectable Card Game, produced by Wizards of the Coast.

Film Strips: X-Men - The Movie Adaptation (2000)

Marvel's relationship with the X-Men movies has always been a little strained. It's something that goes right back to the beginning of the franchise. Indeed, Bob Harras' failure to turn the release of X-Men into an excuse to sell X-Men comics is often cited as one of the factors in his removal as Marvel EIC mere weeks after the film came out.

As it was, their sole attempt to synergise their line involved a logo change on the core books that lasted 2 months, and a handful of movieverse tie-ins. The idea of X-Men movieverse comics seems alien now, but back then it was a thing that definitely happened. Here we present a look at what is perhaps the most visible of those: X-Men: The Movie, The Official Comic Book Adaptation. Or as I like to call it, X-Men: The Movie, The Official Comic Book Adaptation of the Official Comic Book Movie: The X-Men or XTMTOCBAOCBMTX for short.

Film Strips: Superman III (1983)

Our new series Film Strips, in which we explore the curious phenomenon of the comic book movie adaptation, kicks off with a look at the first ever adaptation of a superhero movie...

I'm not sure exactly when the first ever comics tie-in adaptation of a movie was actually published - but what's certainly true is that the genre exploded in the wake of Marvel's hugely-selling Star Wars comics - and although their sales popularity never hit that late '70s peak again, publishers have generally been happy to churn them out ever since.

It wasn't until 1983, however, that we first saw a comics adaptation of a film that was itself based on a comic book superhero. Having failed to put out adaptations of the first two Superman films (although they did issue a "Magazine Special" for each), DC published a full adaptation of Superman III in 1983.