# How similar are MCU movies to the comic books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 7, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582 "2018-06-07T01:48:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/1 "2018-06-07T01:48:49Z")
I really enjoy the MCU movies; Iron Man, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy etc. Are the movies very faithful to the comic books re: humor, action, and character development? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/2 "2018-06-07T01:56:04Z")
And a follow up. If I started reading a new story in a comic book, approximately how long would it take to read a “movie’s” worth of story? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/3 "2018-06-07T06:43:08Z")
The movies are broadly similar to the books, and many of the scripts for the films borrow heavily from certain storylines / story arcs in the books, but, generally, they are by no means identical. The characters, too, tend to be similar to their comic-book inspirations. For example, in both versions, Tony Stark is a brilliant playboy industrialist, and son of the same, with a big ego and a drinking problem, who invents the Iron Man suit after being captured by enemy soldiers, and suffering a shrapnel wound to the chest. But, one important thing to remember is that most of these characters have been around for 40-50 years or longer, and they have gone through numerous revisions and updates the years, as new creative teams have taken over the books. Things like tone, humor level, etc., as well as specifics around the characters, their personalities, and their powers, have often varied considerably. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/4 "2018-06-07T11:25:56Z")
You can look up vast amounts of backstory on characters at Comic Vine. [Example](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/iron-man/4005-1455/). ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/5 "2018-06-07T13:04:20Z")
Let’s look at _Spider-Man: Homecoming_. That character is about fifteen years younger than his comic book counterpart. His version of Ned Leeds is very similar to Gahnke, the sidekick of Miles Morales (the new, black, teen-aged Spider-Man). Comics Spidey makes his own gadgets and learned the hard way not to get too indebted to Tony Stark, something his film counterpart is in the process of learning the hard way. Comics Spidey’s Aunt May is pushing 80 and was never all that attractive; Film Spidey’s Aunt May is about 40 and is quite a babe. Captain America made it his personal mission to keep Comics Spidey out of the Avengers until circa 2005. Movie Captain America doesn’t seem to have strong feelings about it one way of the other. Movie Spidey has the same moral fiber and guilt as his comics counterpart, but is significantly less of a scientific genius. Bottom line: There are similarities and there are differences. The comics characters were crafted with the idea that they’d be floating around for maybe five years before the company went down the drain. The movie characters were bought and reimagined with the hope that they’d last long enough to give a profitable return on a several billion dollar investment. In the comics, Iron Man was a second-tier character and Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) was third tier at best. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/6 "2018-06-07T13:18:32Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > You can look up vast amounts of backstory on characters at Comic Vine. [Example](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/iron-man/4005-1455/). WHY did you introduce me to Comic Vine TODAY? I’ve got things to do… well, maybe after I see what they know about the original Brain Boy series… ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/7 "2018-06-07T13:23:08Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Comics Spidey’s Aunt May is pushing 80 and was never all that attractive; Film Spidey’s Aunt May is about 40 and is quite a babe. Marissa Tomei is 53, about the same age as Robert Downey, Jr. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/8 "2018-06-07T14:27:35Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Comics Spidey makes his own gadgets and learned the hard way not to get too indebted to Tony Stark, something his film counterpart is in the process of learning the hard way. I don’t read Spider-Man religiously, but I do know that, originally, he had no connection at all to Tony Stark, and he made his own equipment (like the webshooters). As you note, in the comics, Peter was a science nerd. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/9 "2018-06-07T14:39:17Z")
[Behold, the original Groot](http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics354.html). ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/10 "2018-06-07T17:18:42Z")
Horatio Hellpop: > [@](#): > > Captain America made it his personal mission to keep Comics Spidey out of the Avengers until circa 2005. I don’t know at what point in comics history that was, but I just recently read an Avengers collection circa 1984 which has the Avengers, Cap included, ready to welcome Spider-Man to the team, but he was rejected by their government liaison because of the bad rep he had thanks to the Daily Bugle. > [@](#): > > Movie Captain America doesn’t seem to have strong feelings about it one way of the other. Movie Captain America was on the run from the law when Iron Man offered Spidey Avengers membership at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, and was planets away when Iron Man conferred said membership on Spidey in Avengers: Infinity War. I don’t think the matter of Spider-Man joining the Avengers was ever an issue he had the opportunity to weigh in an opinion on. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/11 "2018-06-09T00:00:48Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Horatio Hellpop: > I don’t know at what point in comics history that was, but I just recently read an Avengers collection circa 1984 which has the Avengers, Cap included, ready to welcome Spider-Man to the team, but he was rejected by their government liaison because of the bad rep he had thanks to the Daily Bugle. The idea of putting Spider-Man in the avengers popped up many times before it actually happened. I’m trying to pin down the exact issue–it was an early Spider-Man annual where they invite him to join, but he has to catch the Hulk to prove he’s worth it. Hawkeye loves the idea, Wasp is dead set against it, Cap keeps his own counsel but he clearly doesn’t love the idea. He actually gets voted in during Avengers #329, but Cap pulls him aside and asks him not to join. That had to hurt. During the big Volume 3 reboot (Issue 2, I think), Cap calls everyone who was ever an Avenger to fight Morgan La Fey. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, and Spider-Man backs out because he has his own problems to deal with. Cap’s eyes roll audibly. Cap definitely had issues with the guy. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/12 "2018-06-09T02:00:55Z")
THe first time I remember seeing Spidey try to join the Avengers was when he talked to one of them and they mentioned how much they were paid. That piqued his interest. So he did one issue with them and got booted out by Cap for not being a team player. As for differences, comic writers can’t compete with movie writing teams for humor. I’ve read that for the last 20 years or so movie scripts get “punched up” by professional comedians and comedy writers, which is an expense book authors and comic book publishers can’t afford. Donald Glover for example says he punched up the Black Panther script to add jokes. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/13 "2018-06-09T02:09:08Z")
One big difference between the MCU (and the X-men movies) is that they move a lot quicker than the comic books. Story lines which took months (or even years) in the comic books get finished in one or two movies. This is for the better in most cases, as lot of comics (the X-Men in particular) were notorious for starting plot lines and then never resolving them. The main cause of this was revolving writer syndrome (one writing team would start a storyline, quit or get fired, and then a new writing team would come aboard and just start a new story line without resolving the first team’s). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/14 "2018-06-09T02:14:28Z")
Yeah, there’s a similarity between comic books and wrestling and soap operas in that because they are continuous things that literally never end as long as it’s making money, storylines can be started by one group of writers and finished(or dropped) by a new set. One of the amazing things about the MCU has been how well planned it’s been under the leadership of Feige. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/15 "2018-06-09T02:14:56Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > But, one important thing to remember is that most of these characters have been around for 40-50 years or longer, and they have gone through numerous revisions and updates the years, as new creative teams have taken over the books. Things like tone, humor level, etc., as well as specifics around the characters, their personalities, and their powers, have often varied considerably. I would love to get into comics but this keeps me out. I never know where to start. There are so many changes and retcons and adjustments and parallel universes and crossovers and whatnot that I just cannot keep up and keep it straight. It is utterly bewildering to me. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/16 "2018-06-09T15:45:04Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > The comics characters were crafted with the idea that they’d be floating around for maybe five years before the company went down the drain. Well, no, but there have been a couple of factors that had similar effects on the industry. By the time Marvel started moving heavily into superhero books in the '60s, the idea that superhero characters could be around for decades had, well… been around for decades. However, up to that point, the industry had operated around the idea that no one customer would _read_ comics for more than five years. Comics were for kids - they’d pick them up around eight, and grow out of them around fourteen. As a result, they tended to be very repetitive, with no real character growth. Continuity was ad-hoc and somewhat accidental. Marvel’s innovation was to realize that there was a market for older kids there, as well - high school and college age, and started adding more mature content, and longer form stories. Characters started to experience real change. Peter Parker graduated from high school and went to college. Reed and Sue got married. A few years later, Chris Claremont took over _The X-Men_ with the intention of turning over the entire roster every five years or so, because characters would grow, resolved their internal and external conflicts, and move on to lives beyond superheroing. Of course, financial success interfered with that. Peter Parker eventually stopped aging, stuck in a perpetual mid-thirties, because no one wants to see a seventy year old swinging around on webs. People still want to see more Cyclops stories, so he keeps getting pulled back into X-Men stuff. And you start getting that repetition again, because people who grew up reading the books get into the industry, and they want to write the characters they read when they were kids - so Peter’s marriage to MJ gets mystically dissolved, because the editor at Marvel liked Spiderman better when he was single, and flirting with Black Cat. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/17 "2018-06-09T16:45:47Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Let’s look at _Spider-Man: Homecoming_. That character is about fifteen years younger than his comic book counterpart. Movie Spidey is about the same age as original 1960s comic-book Spidey. The character in the comics got somewhat older over the years and is currently stuck at thirtysomething. Comic book time has a flexible relationship to real time (typically bending as necessary so that the major characters have been active for “about a decade” until now, whenever “now” is). ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/18 "2018-06-10T23:30:24Z")
Horatio Hellpop: > [@](#): > > The idea of putting Spider-Man in the avengers popped up many times before it actually happened. I’m trying to pin down the exact issue–it was an early Spider-Man annual where they invite him to join, but he has to catch the Hulk to prove he’s worth it. Hawkeye loves the idea, Wasp is dead set against it, Cap keeps his own counsel but he clearly doesn’t love the idea. > > He actually gets voted in during Avengers #329, but Cap pulls him aside and asks him not to join. That had to hurt. > > During the big Volume 3 reboot (Issue 2, I think), Cap calls everyone who was ever an Avenger to fight Morgan La Fey. The fate of the world hangs in the balance, and Spider-Man backs out because he has his own problems to deal with. Cap’s eyes roll audibly. Cap definitely had issues with the guy. Interesting history, most of which take place in issues I was unfamiliar with. The story I was referring to happened (I’ve since looked it up) in Avengers # 236-237. Spidey did have issues with acting as a member of a team, but the Avengers (Cap included) agreed to accept him as a trainee, until their government guy said no. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-similar-are-mcu-movies-to-the-comic-books/815582/19 "2018-06-13T22:32:44Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I would love to get into comics but this keeps me out. > > I never know where to start. There are so many changes and retcons and adjustments and parallel universes and crossovers and whatnot that I just cannot keep up and keep it straight. > > It is utterly bewildering to me. Go to your local comic book shop and say “Hey where’s a good place to start with \_\_\_\_\_” Also… just go with it. I was a kid when I started reading comics… nobody gave me FF#1… My first issue was FF#299 in the middle of an arc…I figured it out.