Are Superheros better Animated or Live Action?

[O.Supreme]

Greetings All,

This is something I’ve been pondering for a while now. - Are comic book Superheroes better represented in animated form or live action?
I ask this because of the sentiment I hear of fatigue and burnout in terms of these films in the coming years. I mean if we go back just to the first couple of Icons for example, Superman (AC #1 June 1938) was first represented in animation via Fleischer Studios shorts made for theaters initially in 1941. Even some 75 years later, these shorts are still heralded for their groundbreaking quality of animation, and enjoyed to this day. Batman’s first time off the page was in a serialized form in 1943. Needless to say, even in those early days, low production budget prevented Batman from fully living up to his comic representation.

Throughout the 40’s & 50’s- Superman had several serials of his own, as well as a TV series with George Reeves. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that Batman first crossed over to television in both live-action and animated form, of which the live-action, while considered *campy* has a huge nostalgia factor with fans and was the most desired TV series not on DVD for the longest time until it was finally released a couple of years ago.

Of course in 1978-we got an amazing Superman film, and in 1989 quite possibly the penultimate Batman film. In 1992, we got Batman: The Animated Series-which set a new high bar for action animated series. Superman:TAS followed in 1996 by the same team involved with Batman, and while *I* personally enjoyed it just as much as Batman, I know its Batman:TAS that holds the gold standard for what is considered a well written & iconic looking animated series. In the past 30 years however –Comic Book heroes from all realms have been constantly retreaded on TV, and in film –both animated and live action.
For a long time live action was limited in what it could portray (1970’s Spider-Man is a classic example), but with modern filming techniques and CG, it seems the sky is the limit…
But I still wonder, when even the seeming *worst* Live Action representation (F4 2015) can make $168M in box office receipts, while the Best Animated Representation, may make only about 10M in media sales (DVD, Blu ray, digital downloads etc…) *citing some of the best DC Animated Films.

Now of course I know the budget for animated films is a fraction of the cost of live action, in fact the last Superhero film in animated film to be released theatrically was Batman:Mask of the Phantasm in 1993, which make only 5.6M against a 6M budget, a financial loss despite having an 82% positive score on RT
.
While not fitting the Superhero genre exactly, a more modern example would have been Star Wars: The Clone Wars. While this served little more than the pilot for the TV series, you would think that anything with “Star wars” attached would have made tons of money in the theater…

Clone wars made 68M, against a 8.5 M budget, it was a success for sure, but it still way underperformed for a Star Wars film…I feel that there was definitely an animation prejudice in this case.
For me personally I have always loved superheroes in animation as opposed to live action. I guess most people seem to *relate* more if they see real people on screen as opposed to a “cartoon character for kids”. –But for me, when I start to see how Robert Downey Junior (for example) has become so synonymous with Tony Stark that Iron Man’s portrayal in Marvel Comics, and in animation all seem to be based on RDJ, rather than the traditional Iron Man, it becomes a bit disconcerting.

I know this would probably never happen, but I would really like to see what a studio like Pixar, or DW, or Illumination could do with 100M to do a big time animated superhero film (and no Lego Batman, as a satire doesn’t count).

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the live action films or TV series, (well I’m definitely experiencing the law of diminishing returns with them) , but I guess I just pine for an awesome animated film to be released theatrically on even ground with some of the big studio big blockbusters. I have to say the Spider-Man animated film Sony has in development for December 2018 certainly has peaked my interest, too bad we have to wait almost two years to see it.

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

In terms of pure form they're probably better animated because animation is closer to superheroes' original form: the comics page. One of the most prominent early animations was by Winsor McCay (Little Nemo) just showing characters from his newspaper strip 'come to life' on screen.

While special effects have allowed what was impossible before (like Spider-Man's speed, flexibility, and wall-stickiness or Hulk's hugeness) to be shown, I think other powers are more tricky to make 'real.' I'm not sure the stretchy, shape-changing powers of Plastic Man, Mr. Fantastic, Kamala Khan, Metamoprho and The Metal Men can ever be captured satisfactorily in a realistic fashion.

[O.Supreme]

[Benjamin Haines]

[O.Supreme]

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them. As for Avengers EMH. While it is true, because it came out in 2010, the Iron Man on that show did to some extent start to copy RDJ (part of the problem I mentioned earlier). But because it was only 2010, and only 3 MCU movies had been out, and Disney had not taken full hold of it, the rest of the series is really closer to 616 than MCU. The first 5 episodes literally "build" the team focusing on one or two members of the Avengers. Then you get to episodes 6-7 which is a 2-parter that sees the team assembled for the first time, and it truly is the original Five (IM, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man & Wasp). Just like in the comics, Hulk leaves early on, but then returns. Cap is introduced early on, but doesn't became part of the tam until later in the season (just like in the comics). Black Panther and Hawkeye round out the team for Season 1, but there are so many other heroes and villains in this series, it is great. Season 2 is great also, but Jeph Loeb started to meddle and some of the long terms story arcs were obviously cut short, it doesn't diminish the greatness that much, but believe me when I say my disdain for what he has done as head of Marvels TV division is pretty intense.

Avengers Assemble which started in 2013 (in the shadow of the First Avengers film), is a full on MCU clone from the beginning, and has been completely underwhelming for its entire run.