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| source// Marvel Studios/Marvel Comics |
In recent years, Marvel has begun to alienate their most loyal fans as they look to grab the attention of the casual readers who get to know their characters through the movies. As a publisher, they’re doing a lot wrong right now, but perhaps the most infuriating thing they’re guilty of is the way they’ve allowed the big screen adventures of their characters to vastly change the comic book universe.
Despite obviously being part of the same company, it’s important to note that Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios are very separate. Kevin Feige isn’t calling the shots on The Avengers each month any more than Editor in Chief Axel Alonso is dictating what should happen in Captain America: Civil War. However, seeking to capitalise on the success of all those Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the comic book division is constantly ripping off their ideas and bringing them into the classic Marvel Universe.
While you can’t blame them for wanting to make the comics more inviting to newbies, many of the changes they’ve made over the years have become as infuriating as their never ending stream of new #1 issues!
These are the eight most significant examples of the many ways the MCU has forever changed the comics. These are all as infuriating as they are baffling, and with Marvel making so many of their characters poor imitations of their big screen counterparts, it’s really no wonder that DC Comics has started creeping up the sales charts each month…
8. Star-Lord Gets Rebooted
As seen in Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s famed Guardians of the Galaxy run, Peter Quill is a hard edged war veteran who was a bit of an a**hole. Don’t get me wrong, Star-Lord is a good guy, but he was a long way off being the joker Chris Pratt portrayed in the James Gunn helmed movie. However, when Marvel brought back a Guardians of the Galaxy series to coincide with the movie, Peter had been completely changed.
He was given a new origin story, appearance, and attitude, and while Marvel initially put him in a newly designed costume, the success of the movie meant he was soon sporting a coat and helmet identical to his big screen counterpart. While this transformation hasn’t hurt the character (Star-Lord even has his own solo series now), it’s surprising how much Marvel has willingly veered from the way he was portrayed for decades.
Of course, the main advantage Marvel had here was that not even the most die-hard Marvel fans were all that familiar with Star-Lord before the Guardians of the Galaxy movie was released, and that made these changes a lot easier than if they’d been with someone like Spider-Man. Still, their willingness to ignore their own history just to try and bring movie fans to the comics means that not a single character is truly safe!
7. The End Of Female Loki
When J. Michael Straczynski brought Thor back from the dead, he modernised the God of Thunder’s costume and speech (words like “Thou” and “Verily” thankfully vanished from his vocabulary). The movie had nothing to do with any of that though as this all happened years before the release of Thor in 2011, but when that started casting, the Marvel Universe lost one of its most interesting and original villains; Lady Loki.
Many Asgardians emerged from Ragnarok quite a bit differently, but it was the God of Mischief’s transformation which provided the biggest shake up. In the stolen body of Sif, Loki being a woman changed the dynamic between her and Thor quite a bit and gave the comics a much needed A-List female villain. In the build up to the release of Thor though, Marvel quickly did away with Lady Loki and brought back the classic version.
That was a disappointing decision, especially as fans had embraced this new Loki. Of course, this change took place back when Marvel were a little less heavy handed with following the movies (giving Spider-Man organic webshooters to tie into Sam Raimi’s movies for example rather than totally changing his personality), but nowawdays the comic book version of Loki is basically just a less interesting version of Tom Hiddleston.
6. Agent Coulson
Following his brief appearance in Iron Man, Agent Phil Coulson quickly became a fan-favourite character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his death in The Avengers left fans devastated (until Marvel robbed that scene of the impact it had by resurrecting him for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show). It wasn’t until 2012 that he made his comic book debut, but it happened in the most ridiculous and nonsensical way possible.
When Battle Scars introduced a friend of Marcus Johnson (more on him later) called “Cheese”, he bore very little resemblance to Coulson in terms of personality or appearance. However, just like Marcus became Nick Fury by the time that series wrapped up, so too had Cheese suddenly been transformed into Agent Coulson. Since then, Marvel has done their utmost to make him every bit as likeable and snarky as the TV version.
There were many ways Marvel could have brought Coulson into the comics, but the way they ended up handling it was just embarrassing. Pretty much the entire cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have been shoehorned into this world though, including May, Fitz, and Simmons. It doesn’t matter than it makes zero sense that we’ve seen none of them before now of course; Marvel just wanted to launch a new S.H.I.E.L.D. series!
5. Hawkeye Loses His Iconic Mask
As with Star-Lord, the costumes of many characters have been altered over the years because of the movies. With the recent “All-New, All Different” relaunch, it appears as if that will no longer be the case (mostly because the majority of their characters are in hideous ’90s style outfits Marvel Studios would never bring to the big screen), but easily the biggest casualty has been Hawkeye and his classic purple costume.
The Avengers movie clearly followed The Ultimates by making Clint Barton a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and adapted his costume from that series very faithfully, so why the regular comics had to follow suit (no pun intended) is hard to say. After all, Marvel had just put the character back in his classic costume to much fanfare – following his tenure as Ronin – and to have him suddenly wearing that bland tunic and a pair of shades was odd.
While it wouldn’t have necessarily worked in the MCU, Hawkeye’s classic look is no more ridiculous than Captain America’s, and it’s now difficult to imagine the archer ever being able to return to that. There are countless ways Marvel could have updated the costume above without compromising it too much, but now the character instead looks like a slightly crappier version of the Hawkeye from the movies.
4. Iron Man’s Entire Personality
Before the release of Iron Man in 2008, Tony Stark was typically portrayed as just a really smart guy. Yes, he was a billionaire playboy, but it was really Robert Downey Jr.’s snarky take on Tony Stark which injected the character with a lot more personality. That means he’s now a lot wittier and funnier, something which has helped him keep his own solo series going, a task which was previously not all that easy for Marvel.
Unfortunately, the comic book Tony has basically been turned into Downey Jr.-lite in the years which have followed. While Iron Man has undeniably become more fun to read, not every writer has succeeded in giving this new Iron Man the same likeability as his big screen counterpart; Matt Fraction perhaps did it best, but attempts which followed from writers like Kieron Gillen and Brian Michael Bendis have been a little hit and miss.
It also feels like Tony Stark’s smarts have been lost somewhere along the line, and having him constantly cracking wise in the pages of The Avengers borders on being tedious at times. One of the biggest blunders by Marvel however was so quickly repairing the relationship between Iron Man and Captain America; in order to capitalise on Iron Man’s big screen success, they’re pretty much ignored what happened in Civil War.
3. Quicksilver And Scarlet Witch, Mutants No More
Pretty much all of the changes featured here were unnecessary, but the rest in many ways pale in comparison to Marvel’s decision to remove Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch’s mutant heritage. The son and daughter of Magneto, these former members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants rejecting his ways to become Avengers has always been a defining part of their story, but that all changed when Avengers: Age of Ultron hit.
With Marvel Studios unable to acknowledge the fact that these two are mutants due to Fox owning the movie rights to the X-Men, that movie found an inventive new way of giving them powers. Unfortunately, the comics didn’t. After confirming that Magneto wasn’t their father, the Uncanny Avengers series offered the disappointing explanation that these two are in reality failed experiments of the High Evolutionary.
This robs both Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch of a huge piece of their history, and makes the House of M storyline which featured Wanda using her powers to wipe out a huge chunk of the mutant race worthless. Seeing as Marvel have put mutants in the back seat in order to focus on Inhumans, it’s no real surprise that these two ended up being casualties. To rob them of their origin story is a massive insult to their legacy.
2. Nick Fury Jr.
When Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch teamed up for The Ultimates (a modern take on The Avengers set in its own reality), they turned Nick Fury into a Samuel L. Jackson lookalike. It was a cool decision, and one which had a major impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe when the actor was later cast for that Iron Man after-credits scene. However, Marvel soon decided that they wanted their own African American Nick Fury.
Rather than bringing the Ultimate version into the 616 Universe, Marvel instead took the original Nick Fury off the board in the most insulting way possible with an event called Original Sin which turned him into a murdering psychopath who basically ended up becoming the ghost of Christmas past. Then, it was time to introduce Marcus Johnson, his secret son who was secretly called “Nick Fury Jr.”. Seriously!
By the end of the Battle Scars series, Marcus had shaved his hair off, grown a goatee, and lost an eye – what a coincidence! – before being drafted into S.H.I.E.L.D. and miraculously landing a top position in a matter of weeks. This was the laziest and most pathetic attempt by Marvel to forcibly place a character from the movies into their comics and they didn’t even do a good job of it. Everything about this was just really dumb.
1. Science Bros
Despite the fact that he was a founding member of the team, The Hulk wasn’t included in the ranks of The Avengers for decades. However, the way moviegoers embraced Mark Ruffalo’s take on the character in The Avengers changed that, and the Jade Giant was brought back into the fold. Since then, The Hulk has made regular appearances in the pages of The Avengers comic books, but he honestly doesn’t really fit.
Marvel have tried almost countless different status quos for The Hulk in recent years (he’s had to stay angry, been an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and is currently not even Bruce Banner), but making him an Avenger goes against the solitary nature of the character and is baffling when you consider the fact that he returned to Earth only a few years ago with the intention of conquering them all following the events of Planet Hulk!
Something Marvel has also tried to emphasise is the friendship between Bruce and Tony, making them “Science Bros” just as they are in the MCU. This too feels forced and completely goes against their history; they’ve never been friends, and Marvel’s attempts to retcon established relationships in order to fall in line with the movies is beyond frustrating. In the case of these two, it hasn’t worked as well as the movies anyway.
Which other notable ways have the MCU messed with Marvel comics? Share your own observations below in the comments thread.
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