06/08/2008

Comic Related Part 2

Ok, so I put forward my thoughts on the best DC properties that could and should make it to fil, but now for something different, looking at non-DC/Marvel properties and seeing what out there would make for a decent TV series. With so much quality TV out there from Dexter to Mad Men, it's time for comic properties to break live action TV. Will any of these get taken up? Unfortunately, I doubt it, it just depends on who's willing to take an expensive risk. Not something production companies are really known for.


1) Preacher

Preacher was briefly touted as a TV series when HBO bought the rights a few years ago, but unfortunately that has since been forgotten and any sign of a Preacher series/movie/anything seems long gone.

Preacher, Jesse Custer, a man with the literal voice of God and seemingly fists of Chuck Norris. Coupled with the love of his life,the gun toting Tulip O'Hare and Irish vampire Cassidy. They set out on their mission to find and confront God. Preacher is infamous for its off taste brand of humour and violence, but the heart of the graphic novel and for any potential TV series is the relationship between these three characters and their personal journeys up and down, with and without each other. The characters, like the storyline have a definitive opening and ending, but the journey between the two could be told in various ways, tweaked and tuned for more appropriate television. With various groups of villains looking to get their hands on Jesse Custer including being stalked by one of the greatest comic book characters ever created, The Saint of Killers...kinda like the Terminator meets The Man With No Name. Add to that their original mission and you've got space for several seasons worth of storylines.


2) Powers

Cop shows, work. Whether it be humour, drama or even reality, you can change the setting and the time and you can shift focus from on the street to homicide to forensics, it doesn't matter, because cop shows work.

Deep down, being a damn good cop drama is what makes Powers so good and addictive. Throw in the hook that these cops work in a homicide departemnt that deals specifically with people who have "powers" and investigate these crimes through down to Earth police procdeural work.

With the right casthing Powers could be as successful as something like The X-Files. Like The X-Files, for many it wasn't the aliens and freaks that kept them tuning in it was the relationship between Mulder and Scully and the way they took to investigating each case. The same is true of powers, you want to see the character side of things, see how they investigate the crime and handle the wild card of powers being thrown into the mix.


3) DMZ

DMZ stands for demilitarised zone and in this case, New York City. Set in the near future where America is split by a civil war between the United States of America and the Free States. Now, I haven't read much of this as yet, but the premise alone gripped me straight away and would make for a great TV series given the right budget, bringing war back to the US, following an intern reporter as he tries to aclimatise life in the New York City no-mans land, which is treated like another character in the storyline. Creating a powerful drama and running the gamut of emotions as the lead character Matty Roth goes from being abandoned to finding his own place.


4) Ex Machina

I recently picked up the first HC collection and I am totally hooked from the get go. Murder, mystery, politics and...superpowers. All centered around one man, Mayor of New York City , former super hero The Great Machine, Mitchell Hundred.

Written by the brilliant Brian K. Vaughn who already holds sway with a successful TV series credit under his belt as a writer on the hit show, Lost. There are few similarities between Ex Machina and Lost, though one of which is telling the story through Hundreds time in office and the filling in and updating the story through flashbacks to his time as The Great Machine which works effectively woithout damaging the pacing of the story. Ex Machina would probably make more a cross of The West Wing and Lost than like anything in particular. The storyline is exciting and fast paced for such a political drama.


5) The Boys/The Authority

The Boys and The Authority seemingly couldn't be more different, but I consider them two sides of the same coin. Both attempting to better humanity by dealing with power, abuse and control. The Boys would probably be easier to produce for a TV series, with more black ops work and less super powers, just plenty of sweary violence. The Authority would be high budget, special effects, taking on other heroes, whole armies and interdimensional monsters, which as fun as would be to see and to see The Authority issuing their own brand of arrogant, brutal smackdown it just wouldn't quite work on a TV series budget. The Boys is less superhero centric and you could pull off the occasional hardcore throwdown between The Boys and a group of superheroes without blowing a seasons budget on one episode.

The Authority is something I personally would love to see, but realistically The Boys has a much more apt chance of hitting the screen. Being the guys who take down the superheroes who get beyond their station leaves an open ended storyline suitable for a TV series, but would possibly work better as a big budget film (throw in Simon Pegg as Lil' Hughie).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not being a DC fan there ain't much I could add really. Aside from Batman (Been done)and Superman movies (also been done) I have very little to do with DC. Saying that though, a Justice League movie has the possibility of being good, if they put the time and effort into it that such a movie deserves...