For me, there’s nothing better than seeing your favorite comics and characters come to life on the big and small screen. We’ve all been lucky to be living in this era of the Mega Marvel hit movies. Comics are everywhere, on nearly every channel and streaming service, with every comic publisher getting the chance to get their properties optioned for future films and shows. With so much in the pipeline, I wanted to take a look at what to expect and how soon to expect them.
Let’s start with Marvel. We’ve gotten a little bit of a break since last year’s Endgame and Spider-Man films, but there is so much to be excited for. We will soon have Eternals and Black Widow, and we know we will soon get Doctor Strange 2 and slew of others, but maybe most exciting are the tv shows that are on the way from Disney Plus streaming. I absolutely can’t wait for WandaVision and Falcon+Winter Soldier. But close on their heels it’s been long announced that we can expect She-Hulk, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel. These are far off as we haven’t had even any casting news, but these titles will sure to be game changers.
1) She-Hulk: (In Development, Disney+) It’s hard to say what storyline they will use, but one storyline I would love them to take inspiration from would be the Charles Soule series from 2014. This was a spectacular series and She-Hulk even has to work a case against Daredevil and team up with Hellcat, so they could even bring back actors from the Netflix shows that fans are dearly missing. It’s obviously a bit of a hard role to cast, but I personally would love Gina Carano, whom we recently saw in the Mandalorian series.
2) Ms. Marvel: (In Development, Disney+) This one was a no brainer. You feel like from the outset Marvel had plans to get this character to the masses through television, and she has major potential to blow up huge, a la Miles Morales. I think Geraldine Viswanathan from the movie Blockers would be a good choice to play her.
3) Moon Knight: (In Development, Disney+) A series that would have fit in perfect during the Netflix street level character era, there’s a lot to be excited for here. Once again, we will have to get through the usual origin story bits, but I would really like this series to take from the Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey series from 2014. That series had some amazing visuals, and for the 6 issues, basically told a single episode stand alone story. And of those issues would work perfectly for the show. And though a lot of people have said that Keanu Reeves would be perfect for this role, and he definitely would be, I actually would really like Shia Labeouf for it. He has the crazy down for it.
I’ll sadly skip over DC, because I really don’t know where they are going with anything. Obviously we have the upcoming Batman movie with Rob Pattinson and their streaming service has more seasons coming of Titans and Doom Patrol and such, but there just doesn’t seem to be as much excitement for the DC projects as Marvel ones. Odd.
However, there are a slew of Indie titles that either are or possibly coming soon to some kind of format. It sometimes seems that not a day goes by that some small book has been optioned to be something. It’s all a matter of how close to actually being made and on what format that we will get these. But as we’ve seen with Umbrella Academy and Sabrina from Netflix and The Boys from Amazon, there is huge potential in a number of shows. Here are some of the projects and possible projects that I am most looking forward to.
1) Invincible. (In Development, Amazon) The absolute best thing that Robert Kirkman has ever written (sorry Walking Dead), this incredible super hero story is in development from Amazon as an animated show. Though I would love to see this in live action, it would be very difficult to manage the huge budget this show would need. In any regard, people will be blown away, as this was consistently a surprise a minute story with all the heart and all the action any viewer could ever want from a super hero story. Highly recommend reading this book, you will not be able to put it down.
2) Locke + Key. (February 7th, Netflix) This is the closest to actually being ready, as it is supposed to be released on Netflix this February. I was told for years that this book from Joe Hill was amazing. I didn’t believe it and just always skipped checking it out. Around when the 6th trade paperback was set to come out and wrap up the series, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. And maybe two days later I had blown through the whole thing, it was that good. I had to know how it was going to end and fast. When I finished, I read it again immediately. Do yourself a favor and check this book out before all the stores are sold out when the show comes out, because it is must read stuff.
3) Gideon Falls. (In Development, Amazon) I’ll end with a fairly current title that was almost immediately optioned for a show. Now as I’ve said, almost daily, series after series is optioned to be a show. But that doesn’t mean they will always make it (we’ve been hearing about Sex Criminal and Wicked & Divine shows for what seems like years now with nothing materializing). But recently it was announced that James Wan (of Insidious, Conjuring and Aquaman fame) was set to produce this title through Amazon, so it is much closer than its brethren to being on our screens. Gideon Falls is yet another awesome book from Jeff Lemire (almost everything he writes is gold) and Andrea Sorrentino and with James Wan involved, I’m very much looking forward to this project.
From there, there would just be too many possible shows on the way it would fill three articles, but it’s clear that comic adaptations aren’t going away anytime soon and we will be double entertained in print and film form for many many years to come.