On YouTube is a French documentary, in English, about comic books that’s from a 2002 UK DVD, when the first Spider-Man movie was released. It’s called Once Upon A Time The Superheroes, and I haven’t watched it yet, but from a quick scan it looks pretty good, although not in the league of Jonathan Ross’ In Search of Steve Ditko. I’ve put together a playlist that assembles the ten parts.
(Did you notice what’s strange about the opening moments?)
When I was in the 11th grade, for Christmas I wanted nothing but records, and one of those albums I wanted because of one song in particular…
… later, in 1975, Paul McCartney did this song:
Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo are Iron Man villains. The comic book stories I read forty years ago were wild and unbelievable, but today what’s even more unbelievable is those same super-hero stories are the basis for major high-budget movies. The Superman movie in 1978 I thought of as an exception to the rule. The Hulk TV show, a re-working of the The Fugitive, was more typical of what was being done with comic book material.
The previews for the new Iron Man movie look good, and it’s getting generally favorable reviews. Hey, it’s better than playing Grand Theft Auto 4. Now that’s trash!
I’m glad that the comics I loved as a kid are finally socially acceptable, because believe me it was tough remaining a comic book fan past junior high school. It’s beyond my comprehension how we got to this slick, crowd-pleasing, powerhouse movie from these humble, semi-animated beginnings that nobody over twelve dared admit to enjoying…
This part of the documentary covers Ditko after he left Marvel. I really liked a lot of his stories for ultra-cheapie publisher Charlton, in Derby, CT. They were reminiscent of his mystery stories at Marvel before the return of super-hero comics in ‘61-’62.
