Which Deadpool sidekick got a makeover for the movies that ended up changing the comics?
How did the MCU go about individualizing the Eternals?
You’ll be shocked to see which superhero powers did — and didn’t — translate
from page to screen.
When "Superman: The Movie" hit theaters in 1978, its tagline was "You'll believe a man
can fly."
Well, if you can believe it, Superman hasn't always been the flying hero we know today.
No, his first few appearances characterized his levitation abilities just a little bit
differently.
"Faster than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!"
Instead of being able to fly around, hover, and turn on a dime like the Superman we know
today, the original Superman was still subject to the laws of gravity.
This version could jump up to the top of a mountain with ease, but keeping up with an
airplane was a bit more of a challenge for him.
The big change didn't come about until Max Fleischer — who produced the famous Betty
Boop and Popeye cartoons — adapted the character into animated serials in the 1940s.
It turns out that animating Superman constantly jumping in the air was beyond the technology
of the era, and would've been too expensive to produce.
Having the hero simply fly through the sky was found to be both easier and cheaper to
animate.
Superman's comic book counterpart soon followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Spider-Man has been swinging around New York since 1962's "Amazing Fantasy #15", and to
do it, he's almost always had to use mechanical web-shooters and specially-designed web fluid.
While many fans prefer this take on the character, it was always a bit of a stretch that a young
man struggling to pay rent somehow had the resources to craft devices so advanced.
It would also have made perfect sense for Peter Parker to have gained web powers from
his radioactive spider bite along with his other abilities — climbing on walls, super-strength,
enhanced perception — none of which are as spider-specific as web-spinning is.
When James Cameron was tasked with writing and directing a "Spider-Man" feature film
in the early 1990s, one of his biggest adaptation changes was turning the hero's web-shooters
from mechanical to organic.
When that version of the film fell apart and director Sam Raimi took over, Raimi decided
to keep the organic web-shooter idea Cameron introduced.
After the film's blockbuster success, Marvel Comics introduced a mutation element to make
Parker's web-shooters organic as well, but it didn't last long: the controversial 2007
event storyline "One More Day" erased the mutations and restored the original gadgets.
Subsequent Spider-Man reboot films have also reinstated their mechanical nature.
"Whoa!"
"That came out of you!"
"Yeah!
You can't do that, huh?"
"No!"
Most of what makes Kamala Khan such a fan-favorite comic book character — namely, her fan-girling
over superheroes and being an awkward but endearing daydreamer — seems to remain intact
in the Disney Plus adaptation.
Her arsenal of powers, however, appears to have been completely revamped for the show.
In the comics, Khan can polymorph, which usually manifests in her stretching or growing out
her limbs to superhuman size.
However, it was decided that the MCU version of the character would instead create glowing
energy constructs like a Green Lantern.
There are many reasons — and a lot of speculation — as to why Marvel and Disney might have
made this change for the show.
Some fans think her powers were changed to be more similar to Brie Larson's Captain Marvel,
while others theorize that her original powers were too close to those of Mr. Fantastic from
the Fantastic Four.
Whatever the case may be, the rest of the show seems to be relatively comics-accurate
— at least, for now.
Even though Sam Wilson — a.k.a.
Falcon — hasn't had a solo film yet, he's still a fan-favorite due to Anthony Mackie's
scene-stealing performances in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and a handful of subsequent
MCU films.
He eventually got his title role alongside Bucky Barnes in the Disney Plus show "The
Falcon and the Winter Soldier," which ended with the character taking up the mantle of
Captain America.
In the MCU, Falcon is just a regular human soldier with a special jet pack shaped like
a pair of wings — hence, the name.
He can certainly go toe-to-toe with a number of super-beings thanks to his military training,
but he doesn't actually have any superpowers himself.
Falcon has a single superpower in the comics, however: the ability to talk to birds.
Most often, this would be Redwing, Falcon's avian sidekick who helps him fight crime,
but it's also been extended to birds of all kinds.
Redwing has appeared in the movies in the form of a mechanical drone, but that hasn't
stopped Wilson from treating the robot like it's an actual bird.
"Thanks, Sam."
"Don't thank me!"
"I'm not thanking that thing."
"His name is Redwing."
"I'm still not thanking it."
"He's cute.
Go ahead, pet him."
The decision to take away Sam Wilson's avian communication abilities is definitely one
of the more understandable changes the MCU has made.
Marvel Entertainment head honcho Kevin Feige has stated that Wanda Maximoff is the most
powerful character in the entire MCU.
He has a point: she's psychically manipulated the Hulk and nearly took down Thanos all on
her own.
As powerful as she is in the MCU, the Scarlet Witch is exponentially more powerful in the
comics.
There, she's a mutant with the ability to literally alter reality, to the point that
she wiped out 90% of the mutant population in the 2005 event series "House of M." In
the films, her powers so far have been mostly limited to an extremely broad definition of
telekinesis, some vague telepathic abilities, and shooting off bolts of mysterious red energy.
In the 2021 Disney Plus show "WandaVision", the Scarlet Witch finally got closer to her
comic book powers, creating her own artificial reality and resurrecting her android lover,
Vision.
She reaches even more destructive heights in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,"
which marks an important turning point for the powerful magic user.
It can be reasonably argued that 1998's "Blade," starring Wesley Snipes in the title role,
is the comic book film that helped kick off the current domination of superhero movies
today.
While movies adapted from comics had certainly been successful in the past, "Blade" was one
of the first that wasn't based on a household name like Batman or Superman — in fact,
he was relatively obscure.
"Blade" was also the first big hit to feature a Marvel Comics character, leading to studios
eventually taking a chance on "X-Men" and "Spider-Man."
In the films, Blade is a "daywalker": a half-vampire with all of a vampire's strengths and none
of their weaknesses.
In the original comics, however, he was basically just a regular human with a love for edged
weapons and an immunity from vampire bites.
While the movies kept the backstory that Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire while pregnant
with him, they changed the exact effect that the bite had on baby Blade.
After the success of the films, however, Marvel Comics changed Blade's powers to more closely
align with the version played by Snipes, which is now the iconic image of the character.
It's pretty obvious at this point that Ryan Reynolds was born to play Deadpool, Marvel's
resident "Merc with a Mouth."
Even though 2016's "Deadpool" and its 2018 sequel "Deadpool 2" hewed pretty closely to
the comics — especially concerning the character of Deadpool himself — those weren't the
first times Reynolds played the character.
In 2009's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," Reynolds played Wade Wilson in a motor-mouthed characterization
that was broadly accurate.
However, this is before Wilson turns into Deadpool in the last act… and things really
start to go off the rails.
The film's version of Deadpool looked nothing like his comic book counterpart, his power
set included both teleportation and Cyclops' concussion beam — and worst of all, they
closed his mouth for good.
This is probably one of the most egregious character assassinations in the history of
superhero films, and it's no surprise that this particular take on Deadpool is nothing
more than a punchline nowadays.
"I'll sew your pretty mouth shut."
"Oh…
I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Although Deadpool's character was pretty accurate in the "Deadpool" films, one character who
had a major change to her powers when blasting off from page to screen was his teen sidekick,
Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
Named after a Monster Magnet song and played by Brianna Hildebrand, N.T.W.
bears little resemblance to the version seen in the Marvel Comics Universe.
In the comics, Negasonic Teenage Warhead was originally a mutant with precognitive and
telepathic powers.
In the "Deadpool" films, however, her powers changed to something more befitting her explosive
name — namely, the ability to generate explosive charges from her body.
These new powers are similar to the comic book character of Cannonball, who the filmmakers
originally considered including in her place.
However, they ultimately thought it would be more fun to have the character be a sardonic
goth girl to contrast Deadpool's manic energy — and of course, they also loved her name.
The end result of all this was that Negasonic Teenage Warhead, originally an extremely minor
comics character killed off in her very first issue, was brought back for the Marvel Comics
series "Deadpool & the Mercs for Money."
There, she was given an appearance and power set that matches the one seen in the "Deadpool"
movies.
It can't be overstated how ubiquitous Image Comics' "Spawn" was in the early-to-mid 1990s:
his face was all over t-shirts, toys, video games, posters, and of course, comics.
This was even more impressive considering how mature the comics themselves were, featuring
edgy themes and depictions of graphic violence.
This popularity led, inevitably, to a big-budget feature film from New Line Cinema in 1997.
To the film's credit, it's actually fairly accurate to the comic book, following U.S.
special agent Al Simmons after he's betrayed and killed by his evil boss.
Turned into a Hellspawn by the demon Malebolgia, it's Spawn's job to lead Hell in a war against
Heaven.
There's only one real change made for the adaptation, but it's a pretty big one: the
necroplasm counter.
In the comics, Spawn's powers come from the necroplasm in his suit, which, if fully depleted,
would send him permanently back to Hell with no chance for escape.
This means that, despite his demonic abilities being extremely powerful, he has to be mindful
of how he uses them on Earth.
While the movie does incorporate the concept of necroplasm, Spawn doesn't have to ration
a finite amount of it, meaning the film has to rely on other sources of dramatic tension.
Perhaps the necroplasm counter will finally appear on screen in the "Spawn" reboot film
—that is, if it ever actually gets made.
"Give my regards to your boss.
Tell him he's next."
The original "Eternals" comic series, written and drawn by legendary artist Jack Kirby,
is about a group of powerful and immortal god-like beings who are the basis of human
myths and legends.
They were sent down to ancient Earth by even more powerful Celestial beings to protect
humans throughout history from the monstrous Deviants.
All the heroes in the group shared similar powers: each of the Eternals possesses super
strength, invulnerability, flight, telepathy, and a myriad of other magical abilities.
Of course, certain characters were better at certain abilities than others, but they
otherwise shared relatively equivalent powers.
However, for the star-studded 2021 feature film "Eternals," the decision was made to
split these superpowers among the heroes, giving each their own unique ability.
Only Ikaris can fly, only Sersi can transmute objects, only Makkari has super speed, and
so on.
This helped differentiate the Eternals and made the film generally less cluttered and
confusing than it may have been otherwise.
While a superhero film on the surface, "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" succeeds
by being a fun fantasy martial arts film first and foremost.
The stunts and fights are visceral and brutal, while the narrative is a thoughtful, personal
story about family and tradition.
In the source material, Shang-Chi is likely the greatest martial arts master on the planet,
but he's still human.
The closest thing to "superpowers" Shang-Chi possesses is his ability to harness his "chi,"
but it's implied that anyone could potentially do that as well, if they trained hard enough.
Simu Liu's take on Shang-Chi is close enough to the original, but the major change of the
film comes in the form of his signature weapons, the Ten Rings.
In the comics, the Ten Rings are literal rings that are worn on each finger, each of which
has its own unique power.
The Ten Rings in the MCU are more like conduits for energy that can be used as whips, projectiles,
and propulsion.
Plus, they're worn primarily on the forearms rather than on the fingers.
It's unclear exactly how much of this change was the result of a desire to retcon certain
aspects of "Iron Man 3," but whatever the reason might be, we're not complaining.
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