Independent comics have always been more anarchic, dealing with broader themes than mainstream publishers. But with comics booming in the mid 90s, there was room for a lot of  comics titles to find homes at the Big Two that wouldn’t have ordinarily got a run. And so it was that Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan was spewed into the brain-meat of thousands of unsuspecting comics readers.

What the Hell is That?

Set in the future (exactly how far is never stated, but it’s heavily implied to be quit a bit of time indeed) Transmetropolitan follows the exploits of gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem, a take-no-prisoners wordsmith with a fuck-you attitude and a habit for sicking anything vaguely chemical into any orifice that will accept it.

Hugely successful after publishing several best-selling books, Spider retires to a retreat in the mountains. However, when the cash starts running low, he has to return to The City (implied to be but never staed as Future New York) to take up reporting again.

Constantly causing headaches for long-suffering editor Mitchell Royce, Spider is helped in his debauched escapades by his “filthy assitants” Channon Yarrow (the tall, amazonian one) and Yelena Rossini (the small, angry one)

Spider soons gets involved in the coverage of the latest Presidential election, and after deciding that the candidate who wins, nicknamed The Smiler, is a complete and utter sociopath, sets himself the task of exposing him and getting him thrown out of office.

Along the way, Spider has to stay one step ahead of The Smiler, meet his deadlines, and keep his readers, all of whom he detests, informed about what’s really going on. As Spider himself will tell you, “trust the Fuckhead.”

What Makes Them So Special?

Like how a description of a crazy party can’t do justice to what actually went down, no mere description of Transmet can accurately portray the sheer insanity Ellis manages to pack into every issue. The world of Transmet is a post-cyberpunk fever-dream which would make William Gibson’s head explode, complete with aliens, designer genetics, and flying cars. Importantly though, all the old problems still exist- discrimination, corruption, and people being bastards.

Into all this Ellis drops Spider, a thinly veiled tribute to the original Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson. Spider is a bastard, and he’ll tell you so. But he also believes in the truth, and telling the truth to as many people as possible, so other bastards can’t step on people’s necks any more.

Or to put it in his words- “Journalism is a gun. It’s only got one bullet, but aim it right and you can shoot a kneecap off the world.”

Running for 65 issues, Transmetropolitan is about what it means to be human, why you should never trust a politician, and the simple pleasure of a brand new bowel disruptor.

Why It’ll Never Work

Ellis was working with an animation company until he realised they weren’t expecting to have to pay him, at which point the relationship soured. That project would have featured Patrick Stewart voicing Spider, although at that point he probably could have played him live action as well.

There is the argument that Transmet is unfilmable. I would argue not necessarily, but that it would work better as a television series rather than a movies or movies. The plot is rambling, but definitely has a beginning, middle and end,  with events at the start of the book paying off as the series builds towards its big climax.

Not to mention, Spider is a thoroughly unlikeable character. We root for him, but we’re ashamed to do so. He is a drug addict, emotionally unstable, self-centred, pathetic little man with a chip on his shoulder and a mean streak a mile wide.

He’s also got his redeeming qualities, of course, which is why he’s so popular. But he’s a hard sell to a movie exec.

Ultimately, any Transmet movie that wanted to stay faithful to the comics would need to be a hard-R rating, and combine that with the fairly high cost of bringing The City to life on the screen makes a film unlikely.

What We’ll Have To Settle For Instead

Transmetropolitan is a hard one to try and emulate, because there’s really nothing else like it. I guess if you want to replicate the experience, get a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Mnuemonic and All the King’s Men, play them simultaneously on three screens while taking several illegal substances.

It won’t come anywhere near being like a Transmet movie, but it’ll be a hell of a trip.

Who the Hell is That?

Towards the end of the 80s following the success of Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, DC were looking to expand their line with a range of darker, more adult titles. Journalist and writer Neil Gaiman was asked if there was any character he’d like a shot at revamping for a more adult audience. After listing several characters and being told “no”, he mentioned an idea he had for updating the Golden Age character The Sandman, a mystery man who wore a gas mask and used knockout gas to put his foes to sleep

Gaiman decided to throw out everything but the name, and came up with Lord Morpheus, The Sandman, the literal Anthropomorphic Personification of the act of Dreaming.

The man could think laterally, you have to admit.

Morpheus lives in the Dreaming, the Land of Nod, the place people go to when they fall asleep and dream. And Gaiman made him one of the Endless, a group of seven beings which represent the unchanging forces of life in the universe- Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium. And, to make it interesting, he made them a family.

Dream is a brooding, solitary being, content to construct his dreams and nightmares, but he is also, like all artists, a romantic at heart. A being of immense power, who takes his duties very seriously, unlike some of his more capricious younger siblings.

Also, he’s a well-spoken messy-haired story teller, and is basically one of the most egregious author insertion characters of all time. I mean, come on- he’s often referred to as the Lord of Stories. But then, Gaiman is awesome, so he gets a pass for that.

What Makes Them So Special?

Look it sounds like a giant pile of wank but trust me on this- Sandman is very, very good. The series lasted for 75 issues; In that time, it won the Hugo Award, EIGHTEEN Eisner Awards, and a World Fantasy Award for issue #19 A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After it won they changed the rules so a comic could never win again. Anyone would think it was REAL literature, or something.

If that doesn’t convince you- Sandman managed to literally change the world of comics. From its content, which mixed action and humour with numerous allusions to literature and mythology, to it’s very design, which included moody artwork and sombre covers by Dave McKean which were often pieces of art all by themselves.

But more importantly it changed the way comics were written. Before Sandman, the idea of having a single writer write an ongoing series for 75 issues was almost unthinkable. And for him to decide to finish the story he was telling and end the comic was unprecedented. The current method of printing single issues which are then collected into storyline volumes as trade paperbacks was popularised via Sandman. And the idea that a smart, dark, funny comic that didn’t talk down to its audience could actually sell issues was practically a revelation.

As for the stories themselves, they’re everything from romance to horror to thriller to epic fantasy. While they share a common tone, it’s basically guaranteed you’re going to find something you like somewhere in the thousands of pages. Some of the drawings are quite pretty too.

Also, this book was almost as influential as Morrissey in creating the Goth subculture, but please don’t hold that against it.

Why It’ll Never Work

Well it’s possible it could, but no film would ever be able to capture the full sweep of its 75 issues in one feature length picture. Even a trilogy couldn’t do it, and there’s no way a studio is going to invest the massive amount of time and money, Lord of the Rings style, into a property beloved by comics fans and practically unknown outside of that. Although with Gaiman rapidly attaining the status of Superstar Writer, that option actually looks slightly more likely.

What you could do is adapt one of the earlier story arcs, probably The Doll’s House or Season of Mists, which both could be used to introduce the characters while still providing a fairly tightly plotted story that doesn’t rely too much on what has come before.

That’s not to say that people haven’t been trying to make this into a movie. Hollywood has been sniffing around this one for ages, given that it’s been constantly one of the most talked about comics properties basically since the first story arc wrapped up. Several attempts have been made at a script, including a draft where Morpheus has a fistfight with Lucifer, which kind of misses the point of the series. Gaiman described the last script sent to him by Warner Brothers as “…not only the worst Sandman script I’ve ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I’ve ever read.” So there’s that.

Ultimately, the trouble with adapting Sandman into a comic is you would spend millions of dollars in CGI to bring these characters to life on the screen (and don’t tell me you could just get someone to play Morpheus- you would need to Mocap the hell out of that, and for once having dead, lifeless eyes would actually be a bonus) and then have those million dollar creations sit around talking. There’s precious little actual action in the comic, and what’s there is there for very good reasons. But if you’re spending that much money for film you want Spectacle, and that’s never what Sandman was about.

What We’ll Have to Settle For Instead

It turns out Gaiman himself is slated to direct a film about Dream’s sister Death, based on the short series Death: The High Cost of Living, about a guy who meets a 16 year old goth girl who says she’s Death, and the adventures they have for a day. The comic it’s based on is a fan favourite, and with Gaiman at the helm it promises to be a pretty good adaptation of the work. Also Guillermo Del Toro is executive producing, making it basically a perfect storm of geeky awesomeness.

Gaiman has suggested that Terry Gilliam would be able to get Sandman right, but to be honest I’m pretty sure Gilliam has an ancient wizard’s curse on him at this point, and should be made to stop making films before they kill any more actors.

My point is that I never, ever thought a Watchmen movie would get made, and in fact if it hadn’t been it would  have been one of the first entires in this series, where I look at comics properties which you probably aren’t going to see vying for competition with Wolverine: The College Years.

Not that you could really blame me for thinking they’d never make a movie out of it, because holy shit, Watchmen the graphic novel is so dense it’s practically a singularity. There’s stuff going on in every panel, most of the characters are severely unlikeable, the worst have massive personality problems, and the book is horrifically violent in a way that can’t be altered for movie audiences without losing a key element of what makes the book so great.

Which brings me to Preacher.

Who the Hell is That?

Preacher is a 66-issue comic series written by Garth Ennis, concerning Jesse Custer, a good ole boy from Texas who had an … interesting childhood, culminating in him being forced to be a Preacher in Louisiana. Until the day the disembodied spawn of an angel and a demon called “Genesis” merges with him, wiping out his town and giving him the ability to command people with his words. Which gives it that relatability most traditional superhero comics seem to lack.

He ends up teaming up with his former and once again current girlfriend Tulip O’Hare, a sexy blonde hitperson, and Cassidy, a 100 year old hard-drinking hard-living Irish vampire, and together they go in search of God Almighty Himself, to force him to explain why the world is such a horrible place.

This book looks down on High Concept.

What Makes Them So Special?

It’s John Wayne (who happens to look kinda like James Marsden) teaming up with the hottest most ass-kicking blonde in comics and Spike from Buffy, to fight an insane Patrick Stewart, and Clint Eastwood on steroids. It would the the most AWESOME film of ALL TIME.

Why It’ll Never Work

Other, more influential people than me have realised this over the years and tried to get Preacher made. Two seperate film companies have tried to get it off the ground, and an HBO series got so close to being made they were doing makeup tests for Arseface.

Those of you not familiar with the property may be beginning to understand why this keeps not getting made.

The most recent news, from much earlier this year, was that John August was writing a screenplay for Director Sam Mendes with Neil Moritz producing. I don’t think this one’ll get very far either.

Why? Because sooner or later the guy signing the cheques actually reads the comic, and shits his pants in horror. Everything that makes Preacher great is the very reason it can never be a mainstream movie. The religious themes. The mood shifts between horror and comedy which happen in the space of a panel. The incredibly crude sexual scenes and references. The constant, unending, horrific and awesome violence.

What We’ll have To Settle For Instead

It’s surprisingly similar in style in places to HBO Vampire series True Blood, that same mix of horror and humour which works so well if pulled off properly.  But honestly- you want to see Preacher as a movie? Go watch every western ever made. That’s pretty much what Ennis (an Irishman) did before starting to write the series. Especially, watch The Wild Bunch, watch a couple of John Wayne films, particularly The Searchers and True Grit. And above all, watch Unforgiven. That’s Preacher.

If you want a superhero film the best we’re likely to get is the upcoming Jonah Hex, which is about a disfigured Civil War vet turned bounty hunter, which will reportedly feature quite a few supernatural elements. It stars Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex and Megan Fox as Megan Fox. And it’s another entry on the “holy shit, they made a [superhero name] film??” list. I strongly suspect Hollywood execs are just throwing darts at a board full of comics properties at this point.

The power levels of the DC characters are just ridiculous when you think about them. The Flash, even Post-Crisis, can run close to the Speed of Light. Superman can shift planets from orbit. Even Batman, ostensibly human, is practically super-human in his athletic ability and mental skills.

So what would happen if you took all that power and let natural selection take its course for about a thousand years? You’d get the

LEGION OF SUERHEROES

Who the Hell is That?

Well, that question is a little difficult to answer nowadays. The basic concept is this- a group of superpowered teenagers living in the late 30th century are inspired by the example set by Superman of standing up for Truth, Justice and that third thing no one mentions any more, to band together and inspire people while punching supervillains in the face.

Basically the original trio of Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy (those aren’t even in the top ten most ridiculous Legion names, so stay with me here) originally went back in time to help Superboy (a teenage Clark Kent fighting crime in Smallville) and invited him to come to the future with them and join their group.

They quickly added to the roster and blossomed into a fully fledged Legion, funded by mysterious future-rich guy RJ Brande.

Among the other prominent characters are Brainiac Five, a decendant of the classic Superman villain who uses his immense intellect for good, and Timber Wolf, who would have been a footnote in comics history if he hadn’t been all but officially recognised as the inspiration for Wolverine.

The cast also includes fan favourites Bouncing Boy, whose superpower was to turn into a ball and, well, bounce

as well as the much-ridiculed Matter-Eater Lad, whose superpower was the ability to eat anything. Solid rock, an entire tree, nuclear waste, even unfortunately placed steel bars.

The team protects the United Planets, a confederacy of several worlds including Earth. Interestingly, they also all wear the Legion “Flight Ring” which gives every member the ability to fly even through the vacuum of space. So if “flying” is your superpower, you’re pretty much screwed. Sorry, guy.

What Makes Them So Special?

Well, let’s put it this way- the Legion were the X-Men before there were X-Men. They were explicitly teenagers, and yet they weilded immense power and were granted the respect of the entire United Planets which they protected.

In fact, the X-men analogy is an apt one, because while the Legion still did get up to Silver Age shenanigans like fighting guys whose brain was clearly visibly through a glass dome on his head, they were also fairly groundbreaking in the way their stories were told. Relationships between the ensemble cast mattered, and characters would pair off and split up like .. well, like a group of teenagers. Not to mention they were, ironically, one of the first books to treat continuity with something approaching consistency, if not respect. Characters died and did not come back. Villains master plans could stretch over years our time, with foreshadowing and payoff. And this is all in an age where Superman in his own title was shooting little versions of himself out of his hand, and Batman was gleefully opening museums.

The concept of the Legion is a great one. They’re a group of superpowered teenagers from wildly different backgrounds (many come from opposite ends of the galaxy) and vastly different power sets. And yet they work together as a team. They put forward the message that all good superhero properties anywhere should- that we can overcome our differences and stand up to evil and inspire others to follow our example.

Or, to paraphrase Mightygodking- Do you like Magneto? Professor X? Superman? Wolverine? Well, imagine all of them on the same team, together, plus Iceman and Firestar and Mr. Fantastic minus the stretching and a bunch of other equally powerful characters. That’s the Legion. They kick ass.

Why It’ll Never Work

The trouble with the Legion is it’s a victim of its own continuity. It’s a horrible, tangled mess. Where it starts to get complicated is the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story DC put out in an effort to “clean up” its continuity, but which ended up just messing things up completely. Post-Crisis, DC decided that Superman was the only survivor of Krypton, and that he had never fought crime as Superboy. This robbed the legion of it’s two heroes with the “S” shield, Superboy and Supergirl. It also effectively robbed them of their origin story.

In an effort to fix things, a stand-in for Superboy, Mon-El was brought to the fore but never really clicked. The Legionairres were then aged five years to be in their 20s, thus removing another key element of their appeal.

Detriments aside, the “Five Years Later” legion at least were ostensibly the “original” legion. In 1993 DC decided enough was enough and rebooted the series entirely, starting from scratch. Then, they rebooted the series again in 2005, which is the version limping along on the stands today.

If you’re still reading, then congratulations, you’re definitely not a studio executive, who would have taken one look at that mess and run screaming to hide under his desk and call for a latte (I assume). The continuity isssue is a hard one to sort out, because which Legion do you go with? Do you stick rigidly with one version of the legion? Start from scratch? Make some combination of characters from all the different legions?

The other problem with a Legion movie is that almost everything about the Legion is a marketers nightmare. They have zero brand recognition outside of a hardcore group of comics readers. Their names are ridiculous, and so are their costumes. As every single re-write of their origin has shown, they either plain don’t work or don’t feel right without at least Superboy in the mix if not Supergirl, and there’s little chance Warner Brothers are going to tie one of their biggest franchises into a risky and potential box office flop of a film.

What We’ll Have to Settle For Instead

We’ll have to wait and see how the more famous superhero teams, the Justice League and the Avengers, fare on the big screen. Avengers is theoretically still on the way sometime next decade, but the Justice League movie is still in development hell after the last iteration (the one with Megan Gale as Wonder Woman) fell apart.

If a team movie does well, then maybe, maybe we’ll see the Legion on the big screen. Probably around 2050 sometime. Set your alarms!

Further Reading: The Legion is little known outside of hardcore comics geek circles, but the people who do like the series love it with everything they have. Many also fly into the most hilarious geek-rages you’ve ever seen over tiny esoteric matters, but still. If you love the legion, you LOVE them. And a couple of more level headed fans have written much more detailed and awesome discussions than me.

Chris “MightyGodKing” Bird used to do a regular feature called Why I should Write the legion and it’s an amazing piece in itself, but also pinpoints exactly why the legion are awesome.

Chris Sims of The Invincible Super-Blog actually wrote a propoer essay about the Legion which got published in the book Teenagers from the Future.

And the guys at Major Spoilers have done a great series of profiles of individual Legion members, summarising their character histories and main plots. Spoilers, obviously.

ROM: Spaceknight

Who the Hell is That?

ROM is basically the coolest toy-to-comic adaptation there has ever been. That’s a group that includes the Transformers, by the way. Back in the 80s, Hasbro came up with a toy called ROM, a little robot thing with blinking lights which lifted it’s arm and stuff.

Of course, for a kid in the 80s, this was the equivalent of having your own working starship. Hasbro came up with its own marketing campaign for ROM, including the obligatory TV spots. But to help sell them, they asked Marvel Comics to produce a series featuring their toy. They gave them the ROM toy, the names “Spaceknight” and “Dire Wraith”, and told them to see what they could come up with.

What Makes Them So Special?

In a moment of genius or madness, Marvel gave the handful of ideas to writer Bill Mantlo, who deserves some sort of humanitarian award for what he came up with. He very likely could have shit out twelve issues of generic shoot-em-ups and gone back to snorting cocaine off a midget or whatever Bill Mantlo did with his spare time, but instead he turned in a sprawling epic space opera which rivals Star Wars in scope and vision.

ROM is a Space Knight, a cybernetic being from the planet Galador who chose to be made into a monstrous machine-man to fight the Dire Wraiths which are trying to take over his world. You know they’re evil because they have “Dire” in their name and they look like this

The trouble with Dire Wraiths was they could shapeshift to look like anything. Even Galadorians. Even Humans.

That was what ROM found when he crash landed on Earth while pursuing the Wraiths, which had fled before the combined might of ROM and his fellow Spaceknights. ROM has special scanners which allow him to see who is a Dire Wraith. The trouble is human lawmakers and other Earth superheroes didn’t, and got very angry with ROM for disintegrating what to them looked like innocent people.

You’ve got to admit it does look bad.

So ROM had to stay one step ahead of the humans, while simultaneously tracking down all the Dire Wraiths he could and obliterating them. Also, he had to try to hang on to some semblance of humanity (or Galadorianity) as his increasing quest for vengeance made him question how much of him was still a feeling being, and how much was cold machine.

It was a great concept, and one which ran for seven years and seventy-five issues. Not bad considering the toy the comics had been designed to help sell only managed to move around 500 units, and was eventually discontinued by Hasbro. ROM toys now predictably go for hundreds of dollars on ebay, so check your attics guys, you never know.

Finally, I should quickly mention that ROM comes from the Thor-school of “talk constantly about how kickass I am”

In other words, he’s far more awesome than any toy tie-in has any right to be.

Why it’ll Never Work

At this point you’re probably wondering why this isn’t on Marvel’s list of movies currently in production. After all, any company that likes money — and Marvel definitely likes money — should be all over this franchise, right?

Unfortunately while it’s true ROM would make a great big-screen outing, the problem comes down to copyright. Marvel and Hasbro have been fighting for years about who exactly owns the copyright to ROM, and more specifically, who would get paid if a big screen adaptation were made. Fans of the comics haven’t even been able to get a collected edition, making ROM one of the very few comics properties out there which you still have to track down in single issues if you want to read it today. Or, you know, download it from a torrent site. NOT THAT I’M SAYING YOU SHOULD DO THAT.

What We’ll Have to Settle for Instead

A toy-tie-in turned popular comic series about robots from space who fight other evil space creatures with Earth as the battleground… I’m afraid we’ve already got what we wanted, guys. It’s Michael Bay’s Transformers.

I’m sorry.

For a great in-detail look at ROM, head over to Comics 101- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

* * *

Nowadays it seems like every second film that comes out is based on a comic book. From your standard superhero fare like Batman and the Hulk, to other genres like Wanted and 30 Days of Night. Hell they made 300, for God’s sake. And it was AWESOME. Hollywood is going to strip-mine comics until they’re dry, right?

Well, maybe not, I’m predicting there’s a few properties out there no one is game to touch. Such as…

EMPOWERED

Who the Hell is That?
Empowered is a character created by Adam Warren when he was drawing dirty pictures of superheroines tied up in various states of undress. I hasten to add that he was commissioned to do these by other people. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

Warren began to come up with short little stories about this superheroine who was always getting her clothes ripped off and tied up by supervillains. So a pretty standard comic book. Eventually he fleshed her character out till we have the “Emp” we know and masturbate to today. Her suit gives her the standard invulnerability and super strength, but is very fragile, and if it’s torn even a little bit, she loses her powers. It gets torn a lot.

Above: Think Ally McBeal plus spandex. And a sandwich.

Why It’ll Never Work
Well, Empowered does get tied up a lot. It’s actually kind of essential to the character. And yet you can almost guarantee that would be the first thing to go in a movie adaptation. That subtle satire of the comics industry that plays so obviously on the page would become basically R-rated bondage porn on the silver screen. I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m saying you don’t see too many of those films with a 90 million dollar budget. It’s a shame though, because it would be one hell of a porno. Especially with the right cast.

Above: If this actually happened, half the world’s geek population would die from heart failure.

What We’ll Have to Settle For Instead
Wonder Woman, if it ever gets made. A powerful female superhero with a history of bondage … just add some irony and postmodern commentary and you’re basically there. Actually, if Joss Whedon had wound up writing it instead of dropping it for other things, that’s probably what we would have got, whether we liked it or not.