The age-old debate of whether a movie can do justice to a book has long been in the center of American film; the adaptation of the comic book brings new dimensions to this argument. While some novels, spouting elegant prose and complex character development, are hard to recapture on the big screen, comics, with their larger-than-life heroes and stunted dialogues, are perfectly suited for this leap.

Watchmen (Warner Bros.), which opened in theaters on March 6th, is just the newest installment in a long line of comic book- inspired films over the last 20 years. All comic book movies, however, are not created equal.

The genre, although officially beginning with Christopher Reeve’s Superman (Warner Bros.) series in the 1970s, was not a huge industry force until the late 1980s. According to David McKenna, Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia University and story analyst for Focus Features, notes that, while he does not specialize in the genre, he thinks comic book movies “have been present throughout my career…[and] there certainly was an escalation when Tim Burton took on Batman (Warner Bros.) since Burton comes out of animation. To my eye, that more closely connected comic book films to their graphic source.”

The ability of such films to stay true to their sources has been an object of debate among film experts and comic fans alike. Striking a balance between the traditionally active side of comic book heroes and deeper psychological commentary has always been a challenge.

Accuracy is always in the eye of the beholder, of course. According to Henning Fog, an Ivy League graduate, film major, and comic book aficionado, “comic book continuity is so convoluted at this point (Batman has been around for 60 years) that “accuracy” is an almost completely irrelevant term.”

He maintains that fans enjoy such films “not because they’re “true,” necessarily, to the comics (Watchmen remained true to the book but was mostly boring as a result), but because they take their books’ spirit and project it on screen. The best comic book movies capture the feeling every fan has in reading the source material.”

Aside from accuracy, the ability of films to excite the eye has been a huge player in the commercial success of the genre. Following the success of Burton’s 1989 film, for example, McKenna noticed a change in the aims of such movies.

“Once Warner’s saw the cash cow quality of Batman, they chose to de-emphasize Burton’s dark vision and concentrated on creating whiz-bang sequels that would generate toy sales,” said McKenna.  “The idea for toy sales arose years before from [George] Lucas and Star Wars, and the toy sales became more important than the dramatic content of the films.”

The marketability of action movies has always been central to the success of the blockbusters. However, in the case of comic book movies, consumers have influenced films in the other direction. Fans of comics and video games have come to expect greater attention to detail in the movies they see.

Said McKenna, “Video games and advances in computer graphics began to drive the comic book movie subgenre…films like Sin City and 300 were designed to appeal to young game players since those players would likely be repeat ticket buyers and could be counted on to buy constantly updated versions of the video games.”

Comic-inspired action movies have experienced a huge boom in the last decade, due in large part to the ability of filmmakers to adapt new technologies; it wasn’t until recent years that special effects and technology became advanced enough to truly do these classics justice.

Fog believes that X-Men (20th Century Fox Films) was a turning point for the genre, even though it is not often counted among the best of the genre. “Obviously those [X-Men] characters had and have a huge built-in fanbase…and were aided by huge advances in CGI (movies like Spiderman, The Hulk, etc. weren’t even technologically possible until the year 2000).”

Until the changes in computer animation that came about in the last decade, films such as Spiderman (Columbia Pictures) were never before possible in any live action movie. According to Comicbookmovie.com, 2002’s Spiderman and the two sequels that followed were more than 30 years in the making. Tobey Maguire shoots webs from his wrists and flings his body from skyscraper to skyscraper across Manhattan, a feat that seemed impossible in recent history.

Jim Littler, owner and webmaster of ComicBookMovie.com, said, “The first and most obvious way comic book movies have changed in 20 years is that the special effects industry has advanced enough that they are now capable of making them believable. That helps reduce the cheese factor that relegated a lot of comic book movies to the ‘B’ movie category. “

The enormous impact of technology in the last few years is not a subject for debate; what is under question is whether these changes help the accuracy of the film or just add to its sales.

Littler, a self-described purist, believes that “if it can be done BETTER, it should be tried. For instance, I thought it was perfectly acceptable to update Spiderman with genetic web shooters (in the comics, Spidey had mechanical wrist bands that would shoot his webs), especially since Sam Raimi took pains to be as true to the comics as possible in every other area. This minor change was actually an improvement that also streamlined the story for the movie adaptation.”

There has been much talk about Watchmen in particular in recent weeks. Littler, and many fans like him, see the changes made to this plot as undermining the original aim of the story.

“While Zack Snyder did an excellent job of mimicking the comics in most ways, he felt he needed to change the ending (not to mention that he added an unneeded sex scene to an already overtly sexual movie). Unfortunately, this was too big a change that watered down some of the message of the movie.”

Comic book movies have even become such a force in recent years that they can be broken down into sub-genres. McKenna is quick to distinguish between comic book and superhero movies.

“Films like Ghost World and American Splendor come out of the graphic novel tradition, and they appropriately get promoted for a small niche market. Superhero movies are aimed at the most general, worldwide mass market. Because of that, thematic content is kept as simple as possible and physical action becomes the driving force of the projects,” said McKenna. “Keeping it thematically simple and emphasizing the ‘thrill-ride’ aspect of the films means that the films can play anywhere from Boston to Bangkok. These film can be promoted in quick visual and audio ‘bites’ that zoom around the world via TV and the Internet.”

While superhero movies will probably always have the biggest draw at the box office, studios have been increasingly willing to try properties outside the simple Marvel and DC arenas. Fog finds such movies as 300 and Road to Perdition important to the genre.  Said Fog, “It’s refreshing to see so many different characters, genres, and approaches attempted. It’s helping people to see that ‘comic book movie’ does not always mean ‘a guy in tights beating the shit out of another guy in tights’ there can be more.”

Littler concurs, noting that “there are now many comic book movies that people don’t even realize originated from comics: Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, Wanted, 300, and many more were adapted from comics. There is a Kate Beckinsale movie coming out in September called Whiteout that is about a murder mystery in Antarctica. So, don’t let the fact that there are no spandex tights and capes fool you into believing that the most recent blockbuster isn’t a comic book movie. Chances are, it is. And it can have all sorts of themes that have nothing to do with superheroes.”

Last summer’s mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) was a far cry from Tim Burton’s Batman (Warner Bros.), released in 1989, for several reasons. First of all, and most obvious, is the change in special effects. Explosions, fight sequences, and post-production editing in general have become much more involved and precise in the last few years.

The Dark Knight not only featured an Oscar-winning performance from the late, great Heath Ledger, but according to IMDBPro is also ranked as the sixth best movie of all time, behind such classics as The Godfather and Pulp Fiction. Special effects alone did not elevate such an action movie into the realm of true film; writing, acting, and cinematography morphed the project into something bigger with more staying power.

Aside from the choice of comic and eye catching special effects, Fog points out that “with each new movie, the bar has been raised for writing and acting; both the filmmakers and audiences are demanding more of these characters and their stories. There’s a sort of maturation at play, culminating in the release of The Dark Knight last summer which, forget the ‘comic book’ tag, was just a great MOVIE. It explored complex themes and characters (while still honoring the basic tenets of its comic book world) in a way that had not previously been tried.”

Also key is change in the effect style of such films; good and bad are no longer cut and dry, and heroes often can stumble over the line to villaindom. The dark side of the hero is also an important aspect of such movies.

Littler agrees, citing Watchmen as a film “where basically a hero decides that in order to save the world, he must become a villain. Comics explored the dark-side of superheroes a long time before the movies did. Anti-heroes had their first big boom in comics in the 80s, and have continued to this day.”

He warns against any such trends, as there are “many hardcore fans who are fearful that the movie companies are too quick to jump on the ‘dark’ bandwagon. The success of The Dark Knight movie has made Warner Bros. announce that ALL their comic book movies will take a dark angle, which is totally wrong for a property like Superman.”

Littler also attributes the drastic changes in the last 20 years to something behind the scenes.

“The ‘old school’ directors are being replaced by actual fans of the genre. We now have directors who grew up loving this stuff and are passionate to do it right and true to the comics. The movie companies have discovered that there are a lot of good comics storylines that are ready-made for the movies. Heck, they come pre-storyboarded,” said Littler. “And finally, in part because of the aforementioned reasons, comic book movies are attracting major acting talent now, whereas before they were lacking in that area. Comic book movies truly are the MOST popular genre at the moment.”

The formula for films of this genre to be successful may be much simpler than a combination of special effects and monstrous budgets. Coming from a true comic book fan, Littler sums it up best when he says “as long as the makers of these movies respect the fans they’ll have a hit, but when they treat fantasy lovers as idiots and think that all they need to do is throw in some wacky special effects, that is when they lose us. Even fantasy has to follow SOME rules. And lets face it, quality is quality. Give us fan directors, decent talent, put enough money into it, and you’ve got us.”