Recently Marvel and DC have published official release dates for a number of movies titles, stretching out to 2020. This along with Fox and Sony’s release schedules for X-men, Fantastic Four, and Spiderman related titles means that the cinematic universe is going to be flooded with superhero movies for at least half a decade. It appears that five or more comic book related movies will be hitting the big screen every year. As the prominence of comic book characters in popular culture and media entertainment continues to grow, I wonder if in the future they will even be known for the comics as apposed to the movies. Sure, those of us who read comics even casually think of these characters as first and foremost stemming from the world of comic books. Also, I can see how most comic book fans would think it ludicrous to claim that people will know the characters because of the movies and not the comics. That being said, I would say the vast majority of these movies viewers do not read comic books. Expanding upon that even further, there is a whole new generation whose first real exposure to these characters is going to be the time when they were five years old and their parents took them to see the latest avengers movie. I think it is already fair to say that the origin story of these characters told in the movies are more well known than the various origin stories told in the comics. Sometimes it feels like new series are only being published as promotional content. It seems that more and more the characters themselves are geared towards their likeness in movies. Often characters are even drawn to look like the actors that play them. If superhero movies take over, as it appears they will, is it really that ridiculous to think that in the near future they will be the main outlet for new superhero stories. In 20 years will the comic’s books be adaptations of the movie storylines, or will the movies still be adaptations of the comics? What do you think?
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