comic superheroes

Recently, there has been a lot of comic superhero movies on the silverscreen. It’s like a disease that spreads across film producers’ realm and every one of them seems to be inclined to make their favorite comic character comes to life.

the older ones :
Spawn, Batman, Blade

the recent ones :
X-men, Spiderman, Hulk, Van Helsing, Hellboy, and the most recent one that I’ve watched - Catwoman - starring HaliBali.

What do I think of HaliBali as Catwoman ? Well, personally, despite her set of squalid looking fake boobies, I think she’s sexy and has good prospects to be a lap dancer. Catwoman ? Nah. She’s not good enough. In fact, the movie sucks. Not a bit entertaining. The CGI looked artificial, it was as if I was watching a cutscene from a PC game. A disappointment I must say - just like most of the superhero movies.

Now, the only comic character movies that I think is really up to the standard were Batman (no doubt), Blade and Van Helsing. The rest weren’t good and were as disappointing as Catwoman. Why ? Let me tell you why.

- That’s because they (film producers) are not being creative enough. It’s called “re-invent the wheel”. The movies are trying to show the comic characters exactly as what they appeared in comics to the real world … and when they failed to meet expectations of the audiences, generally, the movie became less entertaining. I felt that most of the characters are only good in comics and shouldn’t be at all brought to life.

- Some of them, even tried to cram the original comic stories into a 120 minutes film (same thing with Catwoman). I mean, come on, this formula doesn’t work. It often makes the storyline ridiculously compact and confusing. HaliBali got flushed from the sewer pipe, got molested by a goddamn cat and turns into Catwoman. Please … at least show us how did the cat do it …

- CGI effects. It’s nice to have them. But when the producers are rushing for deadlines (I spelled it correctly this time), things will not look very pretty. Look at Spiderman and Catwoman. Look at the scene where they were climbing roofs and make those acrobatic jumps. Frivolously rendered and animated. They should have put more effort to make it look like real …. just like how they did Ah Seang in Lord Of The Rings…… (Ah Seang was the nickname I gave to that Gollum character).

Alright, having to say all that, the most important of all - is not to use other people’s creation. If you intend to use it, it better be good.

I mean, it isn’t so hard to make your own superhero character, so, why bother copying ? Here’s some profiling guide ….

1) select your favorite animal or insects.
Most superheros are based on living creatures on Earth (except human). It has got to be a nasty one. Avoid choosing animals like rabbit, squirrel or purple dinosaur. Maybe something like a dog. Let’s choose dog.

2) identify your superhero’s special traits based on the animal/insects you have chosen.
Well, animals have their own specialty. Like rabbits - they can fuck pretty fast. Oh wait, we ruled out rabbit. So, it’s dog. Dogs can bite real hard … and they have a very good sense of smell. Great.

3) give your hero a name.
Spiderman - from spiders. Batman - from bats. Catwoman - from cats. Hulk - from cendol. Our dog hero - we can name him DogDude. (double D - in contrary to DareDevil’s)

4) design a costume for your character.
Look at the existing comic character. They all kinda have their own costume. They spend thousands of dollars to make a rubber suit, just that the public would be able to distinguish them from one another (coz there’s so many of them out there…). So, our DogDude should wear something sleek and aerodynamic - so that he is not mistaken for a real dog.

5) select your superhero’s favorite quotes.
Spiderman likes to say “with great power, comes great orgasm”. Hellboy likes to say “Crap”. The Hulk likes to say “Huarrrghhhhhhhhhh”. Our DogDude shall love to say “son of a bitch”. We have something big going on …

6) theme song for your character
Theme song builds character. The 70’s batman used to have a zippy electric guitar theme song and was always remembered like that … until Tim Burton came up with the new Batman. Our DogDude should have his own theme song too - proposed Baha Men’s hit single. “Who let the dawgs out .. who who who..”

That’s it ! So simple. In just 1 post, and I manage to create my own superhero character - DogDude. I don’t understand why a commoner like me can do it … and top of the line producers can’t. *shakes head in disappointment*