I'm a big fan of watching things in order. When making my friends watch Buffy and Angel, I provided them with a list of how to watch them properly so they could experience all of the crossovers in the right order. When I decided to watch Doctor Who, I didn't want to start with the 2005 revival, I wanted to go all the way back and start with the 1963 episodes. I haven't seen the Godzilla vs. Kong film, because a part of me wants to go back and watch all of the Godzilla and King Kong movies in order before doing so. Some might call this completist obsession a quirk, but it's more of an education — I just love seeing how something grows, changes, and develops over time.
This dovetails nicely into my passion for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has spent over a decade building a world where comic book superheroes both known and under-appreciated can literally collide. While my Marvel viewing habits have made me a true believer, I found myself giving a second look at The CW's DC/Arrowverse content, which I learned had retroactively incorporated older DC properties like Smallville, 1990's The Flash, and 1989's Batman.
That little tidbit made me curious: When exactly did comic book film and tv adaptations begin?
I proceeded to answer my question in the most complicated way possible.
After scouring Wikipedia, the IMDb, and various other reputable websites, I made…
It's a chronological rundown of every serial, short, film, television episode, commercial, motion comic, and web series based on a comic book. There are over 10,000 entries and counting, covering 1941 to the present day (and beyond).
Whenever I would show someone this gigantic list, their first question was generally along the lines of “...but why?”
Well, so I could watch them all. Obviously.
I know this is an impossible task. (And please don’t tell me exactly how impossible this task is. I’ll just stick my fingers in my ears and ignore you. This is how I handle all criticism and reality checks. You know. Healthily.) It would probably take me a lifetime to watch every project. Maybe more. But that’s not going to stop me from trying.
So I'm going to watch as many of these as I possibly can — in chronological order, utilizing my handy-dandy spreadsheet. Of course, there may be a few items here and there that I won't be able to find due to lack of availability (as a Doctor Who fan, I'm well aware of how some older television was just thrown out because they thought no one would want to see these things more than once), but I'm going to watch as much as I can.
Feel free to join along with me! Who knows what we will all discover together? Maybe we'll find out who has played the most comic book roles, how many of these shows and films feature gorillas, and just how murderous our favorite superheroes are. Probably a bunch of other weird things, too.
Do these first bunch of adaptations still stand up? How do they compare to their comic book counterparts? How do they compare to their current media interpretations?
Let’s dive a little deeper and find out.
Tune in next time as we begin with the 1941 Republic Serial Adventures of Captain Marvel.
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